by Josh Karnes
* * *
When six o’clock came, James arrived at the dive boats to find Eli and Mark already there waiting. “We got nothin’,” Eli informed James as he walked up. “There’s just not that many places he could have gone around here.”
“Yeah, same here,” James said, right about when Melissa came speed walking towards them.
“You didn’t find him?” she said, accusingly, eyes a little wild, just holding back panic. “Where did you look? Did you check any coffee shops? James, what about that bar? Are there public bathrooms?” she fired off questions rat-a-tat before anyone could answer, her voice gaining pitch with each word.
“Calm down, honey. It’s only been about forty-five minutes. It’s not time to call in the National Guard yet,” James said, and as the words left his mouth, he realized his attempt at humor to settle things down would be interpreted as mocking, and he’d made things worse.
“James! Our! Son! Is! Missing!” Melissa reminded, nearly shrieking now. “This is no time for your games!”
Eli tried to diffuse the situation. “Seriously, mom. Dad is right. It’s not like this is all that unusual for Joey. We’ve been looking for that kid all his life. He might be a little bit of a space cadet sometimes but he’s a smart kid. He’s probably doing something totally reasonable but we just haven’t thought of it yet.”
“He may even be back at the hotel, wondering what’s taking us so long,” Mark offered.
“You think he would go there? Does he remember the way?”
“Yeah, mom. He knows the way. He’s not a five-year-old lost in the mall. Geez,” Mark said, thinking he needed to get better at keeping his mouth shut.
“Well, we’ve looked everywhere else, and he doesn’t have his phone so maybe he did just go back to the hotel knowing we’d eventually meet up there,” James said, trying to return some calm and reason to a situation that was quickly becoming out of hand. Melissa was already borderline hysterical, and it had only been less than an hour. Mark and Eli were a little bit indifferent, considering they had been drafted to keep an eye on Joey and then find him when he had wandered off literally all of their lives. Their blasé attitude was not helping Melissa any. Someone had to remain confident that they would find Joey, and reasonable enough to get a plan together. James knew that would have to be him. After all, he was the one who had brought them all here, and letting the boys go on their own was his idea. Once Melissa remembered that detail, he was not sure he could keep her from completely flipping out. She would need to be able to rely on someone, and that had always been James.
“One way to know for sure: let’s just go back and check,” James said. And they all made their way back to the Ensenada del Mar where James assured himself they’d find Joey waiting.