Catfishing on CatNet

by Naomi Kritzer

  “What? That’s ridiculous. I mean, the kidnapping part isn’t totally ridiculous because I almost got kidnapped, but by my father. I don’t think he was going to sell me, but he’s super dangerous. Rachel helped me get away.”

  “That’s not going to help,” Rachel hisses. “Tell her he’s not after us, or she’ll send the cops.”

  “But, um, you know the guy who got hit by the self-driving car in Marshfield? That was him. Last I heard he was in the hospital.”

  “I did hear about that.” Her voice sounds calmer. I can’t tell if that’s a good sign or a super bad sign. “Did the car accident have something to do with this?”

  “Sort of.”

  “You weren’t hit, were you?”

  “No, I wasn’t. Have you heard anything about the guy, like how badly he was injured?”

  “Just that he’s in the hospital.”

  That sounded promising.

  “Honey, Rachel needs to come home. Whatever’s going on, this is obviously not something the two of you can handle on your own.”

  “I am following my bliss, Mom!” Rachel yells. “Like you always told me to do!”

  “Your bliss was not supposed to involve an unauthorized road trip!” her mother yells back.

  “Look,” I say. “Rachel saved my life twice yesterday. My mom can’t help me because she’s in the hospital. We’re on our way to meet up with some friends who are going to help me out from here. Can you please just let her keep helping me for a little longer?”

  There’s a long pause. Then: “Does she have her phone charger, money for gas, and her AAA card?”

  “Yes,” I say. I’m actually not 100 percent sure about the AAA card, but it seems likely.

  “Here are my conditions,” her mother says. “Rachel needs to call every morning and evening, and she needs to uninstall that app on her phone that interferes with the tracking app. Yes, I know she’s installed one, because right now the tracking app says she’s at school.”

  “Shit,” Rachel mutters. “Okay, Mom,” she says, loudly enough to be heard. “But not until I’m parked somewhere, because right now I’m driving.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  Her mother lowers her voice and admits, “I don’t really see a good way to stop you.”

  I decide not to point out that she could call the cops on us, because I definitely don’t want her to call the cops on us.

  “Steph, you’d better make sure Rachel calls.”

  “I will.”

  “And call me if you get in any more trouble,” her mother says, and she hangs up.

  * * *

  Dairy farms give way to billboards advertising amusement parks, which give way to the outskirts of Madison. When we get to Illinois, Rachel says she doesn’t want to go through Chicago, so I have her get off I-90 and take a rural road directly south. “How wide of a berth do you want?” I ask as we get near I-88.

  “I want to go all the way around,” Rachel says.

  “Have you driven in a city before?” I ask.

  “Well, I mean, Marshfield, obviously.”

  “Okay.” I look down at the phone. “Keep heading south on this road.”

  We pass through endless suburbs. I try to calculate how much time this is adding versus just going through Chicago, but a bunch of the roads in Chicago itself are red right now in the GPS app, so who even knows? Also, the answer would probably depress me.

  We stop for gas and a bathroom break. Suburban gas stations have better snack options than the rural ones my mother usually stops at; this one has pizza slices and hot dogs and other fresh items, rather than just beef jerky and granola. It’s too cold to stand around outside, so Rachel pulls up to one of the parking spaces by the convenience store and we sit in the car with the heater on as we eat our pizza slices.

  “Where do you think your mother is going to take you next?” Rachel asks.

  “A long way, because Michael found us in Wisconsin. Maybe somewhere to the west. Montana or Idaho.” Not Utah. We’ve never been back to Utah. It’s like Mom is afraid I’ll run into Julie.

  “Will you tell me where? So I can come visit you?”

  Mom won’t want her to visit. Mom will say, She’s from New Coburg. Michael could be watching her. He might follow her and track her back to us. But maybe we can figure out somewhere to meet. “I’ll tell you where,” I say.

  As the day goes on, Rachel takes more breaks. She has me rub her shoulders, which are aching and sore, and tries readjusting her seat, first closer to the wheel, then farther away. It’s early evening when we stop at an Indiana restaurant that looks kind of like a cheesy red barn. They have table service, an enormous laminated menu, and an all-day breakfast.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Rachel says as she eats her pancakes. “This is harder than I thought it would be. The farthest I’ve ever driven before was St. Paul, with my mom last summer, and that was only two hours, and she drove home. This is hard.”

  “We can stop for the day,” I say.

  “But we were going to try to do it in two days. We can’t possibly get all the way to Boston tomorrow.”

  “Marvin’s family goes to California every Christmas, and he says they always promise it’ll take three days and it always takes four.”

  “People were going to try to meet us.”

  “I’ll tell them we’ll be an extra day.”

  “But CheshireCat needs us…”

  The waitress is by with a water pitcher and a slightly tight-lipped smile. “Can I bring you ladies anything else?” she says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Could I see the menu again?” I want to order something like a salad to go, because even if suburban gas station food is better than rural gas station food, I’m definitely hitting the point of being sick of hot dogs. “We’ll get there when we get there,” I say. “I mean, if CheshireCat wanted someone who could sweep in for a rescue right away, they definitely should have shared their secret with Firestar, not me.”

  I am worried about CheshireCat, but I try to push my fear and impatience aside. Whatever’s happened to them, they’re probably not actually in some sort of countdown where if we’re not there in forty-eight hours they’ll disappear forever. Rachel is my best friend. She’s killing herself to help me, and now she feels like she’s not doing enough, and all I really want right now is to convince her that she’s doing enough. That she is enough. That what matters to me most is that she’s with me, not that she’s going to take me to Massachusetts in a certain number of days.

  Rachel’s staring at the menu, and she has tears in her eyes. “I just feel like I’m letting you down,” she says.

  “No!” I say. “You’re not. I mean, how are you letting me down? You brought me all the way to … what town is this?” I check the menu. “You brought me all the way to Valparaiso, Indiana. I can’t drive. My mom sure wasn’t going to do this for me.”

  “What if I can’t—I mean—if I can’t go any farther, all I’ve done is strand you in the middle of nowhere.”

  “That’s not true. I’m pretty sure I could get back to Chicago from here, and I bet there are buses that run from Chicago to Boston. There’s nothing that runs through New Coburg.”

  That gets through. She looks up. “So if I don’t think I can go any farther…”

  “I can take a bus. Or both of us can.”

  She swallows hard. “Okay. Do you need me to tell you right now?”

  “No,” I say. “You can decide in the morning.”

  We get salads to go and remember to tip, and then we start trying to figure out where to spend the night. There’s a hotel across the parking lot right next to the restaurant, but they refuse to rent to us when we try to pay with cash. We try the cheaper, shadier-looking motel up the road, and they aren’t bothered by the cash but they ask for ID and then refuse to rent to us when they see we’re under eighteen.

  Rachel looks like she’s going to start crying again, so I try asking, “Is there anyone nearby who migh
t rent to us?”

  The clerk hands back my cash and says, “No one will rent to you, because you are a minor. You can’t be held legally responsible for your room, so it is too risky.”

  We get back into Rachel’s car, and I try asking the Clowder for ideas.

  “Campground?” Hermione says.

  “Those won’t rent to minors, either,” Marvin says. “Just park somewhere and sleep in the car.”

  “You just made Georgia cry,” I report. This isn’t technically true; she was already crying, although the thought of sleeping in the car made her cry more.

  “Also, if they park somewhere that’s not allowed, they could get arrested which is NOT IDEAL,” Hermione adds.

  “You can camp in Walmart parking lots. Though usually they expect people to do it in campers,” Marvin says.

  “Try another cheap motel and bribe the desk clerk not to ask for ID,” Ico suggests.

  “How do you bribe someone?” I ask. “I mean, do I say, ‘Here’s a bribe! Please don’t ask for my ID’ or what exactly?”

  “You definitely don’t say, ‘Here’s a bribe,’” Marvin says. “I think maybe when they ask for ID, you slide a hundred-dollar bill across the desk and say, ‘How does this look?’ and if you’re lucky, they take it and let you have the room. Of course if they just take the money and don’t let you have the room, you don’t have much recourse.”

  “If you’re going to try this,” Hermione says, “call it a tip. Say something like ‘I’ve always thought desk clerks should get tips’ and give them the money and then try booking the room. But yeah. They could take it and still not rent you the room.”

  Thanks to the anonymous benefactor and Hermione, we actually have plenty of money, and Rachel was able to withdraw it as cash when we passed through Black River Falls, so I figure it’s worth a try. Rachel refuses to come in with me this time, so I count out enough bills to cover the seventy-nine dollars the hotel costs, the tax it presumably also costs, and a hundred-dollar bribe. I check to make sure no one else is in the office, then go in. The desk clerk looks at me. “May I help you?” he says after a beat.

  I square my shoulders and walk up to the desk, trying not to think too hard about what I’m doing because I’ll just get even more nervous. “I have always thought hotel desk clerks should get tips,” I say and lay the five twenties down in front of him. “I’d like to book a room.”

  The clerk eyes the money with obvious regret and then shoots a significant look over my shoulder. “I am not allowed to accept tips, unfortunately,” he says. I follow his eyes to a little camera over the door.

  I pick the money back up. “So … about a room…”

  “I’ll need to see an ID.”

  I stuff the money back into my pocket. At least he didn’t take the bribe and then refuse to rent to me.

  “No good,” I report back to the Clowder. “Any ideas for a motel that won’t have a camera? I bet they all have cameras.”

  “Did you rule out a campground?” Firestar asks. “I bet they wouldn’t have a camera. There’s one kind of near you called Camp Whispering Pines.”

  “That sounds like a summer camp, not a campground,” Hermione says.

  I pull it up on the map. It’s a twenty-minute drive from where we are, and it is indeed a summer camp, not a campground. But you can rent it on weekends year-round, and they still have platform tents up in October.

  “Rachel,” I say, feeling a rush of relief. “Firestar found us a place.”

  * * *

  Camp Whispering Pines is a long way off the road. The sun is going down, and we can’t see much other than the trees (pines, as advertised) until we hit a barricade across the road that’s chained shut and padlocked. We pull the car off to the side and carry in our blankets. Platform tents are big canvas tents set up on wood platforms, and I’m expecting we’ll have to camp out on the floor again, but these actually have beds inside, five cots to a platform tent. We pick a tent, shove all the cots together to give ourselves plenty of sprawling space, and make a nest out of the blankets.

  It’s not warm—I mean, Indiana is slightly warmer than Wisconsin, so it’s not any colder than the unheated house we were in last night—but the long trip down the gravel road gave me the sense of driving off the borders of the map, to a location that my father will never find because he’d never think of it.

  There is nowhere to charge my laptop, but Rachel’s phone still has a full charge since we had it plugged in in the car, and my stupid phone’s battery lasts basically forever. Rachel calls her mother, who apparently finds it reassuring that her tracking app says we’re staying somewhere as wholesome-sounding as “Camp Whispering Pines” and is in denial about the part where we’re illegally squatting.

  I check my texts. Nothing from my mother. Another message from : Steph, it’s Steph, right? Please trust that I am not working with your father. We both have a lot to fear from him, actually. I want to help you.

  And then another mystery message: This is your aunt Xochitl. Your mom’s friend. Steph, I recognized your father in the news stories about the car accident, and your mother isn’t answering her phone. Are you in trouble? I want to help you. Where are you?

  Aunt Xochitl.

  Staring at this text from the person I was supposed to ask for help, something suddenly occurs to me. “Can I borrow your phone?” I ask Rachel. She passes it to me, and I pull up the web browser and search, Xochitl pronunciation.

  Her name is pronounced Soh-Chee. Sochie.

  I am filled with a mix of chagrin at myself for not having realized that Xochitl and Sochie were the same person and exasperation at my mother for assuming I’d make that connection when I’d never seen the name written down. I wonder if her contact information is somewhere in that file box of paperwork? Not that it matters, now that I have her cell phone number.

  I text back: I’m not telling anyone where I am, but if you tell me where you are, I’ll think about it.

  Xochitl immediately texts back a Boston address. It’s not the one we’re heading to, but … well, good to know I have an ally (maybe?) in Boston. I ignore Xochitl’s additional texts, offering to fly to me, to fly me to her, to get in touch with trustworthy people nearer to Wisconsin, whatever I need, because … how do I know this is Xochitl and not my father? For all I know, he found my mother’s cell and got my number out of it and is faking the texts from all the helpful people.

  I try my mother again. Please let me know if you’re okay. No response.

  I’ve been trying not to worry and I’ve been repeating to myself that the hospital people all thought she’d be okay, since I got her in. But if she’s okay, why hasn’t she found herself a cell phone? I feel a flash of anger at her. I’m doing my best. I have my cell phone, and I’ve been texting her. She knows my number; if she doesn’t have a cell phone, she just needs to borrow someone else’s and let me know how she’s doing. Why hasn’t she thought about how worried I am? Is she just not thinking about me at all?

  I check again before we go to bed. I feel guilty when I turn my cell phone off, because that means I definitely won’t be there if my mother reaches out. But I need to preserve the battery power. And it also means I can just put the possibility out of my mind, a bit.

  So we shut down our cell phones and tuck them into zippered pockets so they don’t get lost, make a last-minute run to the outhouse with a flashlight, and then curl up in our nest of blankets. The cots are much more comfortable than the floor; it’s a shame we brought the mouse-poop smell with us, but it’s not too bad. “Should’ve stopped at a Walmart for sleeping bags,” I say.

  “Couldn’t do this in sleeping bags,” Rachel says, and she snuggles up next to me like she had at the house.

  Despite all the texts, I still feel safe here; unfindable; almost like we’re suspended out of time as well as off the map. This is what my mother’s looking for, every time we move. This is how she feels, when we arrive at a new destination, and when that “out of place” sensatio
n fades, I wonder if that’s when we hit the road. I decide that for tonight, anyway, I’m not going to question it.

  “I feel like I should tell you something,” Rachel says.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “I’m gay,” Rachel says. “Bryony knows; that’s probably why she kept calling you my girlfriend.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Thank you for trusting me. I won’t tell anyone without your permission. Just about everyone in the Clowder is queer. Or maybe that’s not true? But Marvin’s gay, Firestar’s pan, Hermione’s bi, and Ico’s ace.”

  Rachel is silent for a minute and then says, “How about you?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I kind of haven’t figured it out.”

  “I mean,” Rachel says. “I told Bryony you weren’t my girlfriend. But if you wanted to be my girlfriend, I would be up for it. But if you don’t, that’s okay, too, and I don’t want to screw up our friendship. And I don’t want you to feel like I’m only driving you because I have a crush.” Her voice falters on the last word. “I mean, you’re a really good friend and you’re an amazing person. And CheshireCat saved your life, and I want to help them.”

  I wish I could reach the flashlight without pulling away from Rachel because I feel like this is a conversation where it might help if we could see each other’s faces.

  In the dark, I grope around and take her hand and lace my fingers through hers. “You are the best friend I’ve ever had,” I say. “I don’t know about the girlfriend thing because I really don’t know. I haven’t figured out if I’m straight or gay or bi or pan or ace, even; we move so often that it’s been hard to even really figure out who I find attractive. All I know is I don’t want to lose you. Ever.”

  “Is snuggling okay?” Rachel asks. “I should have asked last night. But it was so cold…”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “It’s really nice, actually.” And I’m afraid I’ll lie awake worrying about what this means, about whether this is going to mess up our friendship, but that feeling of safety, of being somewhere outside of space, is still there, and instead of worrying, I sink into Rachel’s arms and go to sleep.