Girl Out of Water

by Laura Silverman

  “Well,” Lincoln says. “This beautiful gal of mine has an engagement she needs to make. I keep telling her to stop and smell the roses, but you know how feisty gals can be.”

  Marybeth laughs. “Oh, that I do. The men I’ve tucked under my thumb.” Marybeth gives us a wink, then goes on for five minutes about a string of interesting men in her life. Lincoln starts to ask her where exactly one guy had that dolphin tattoo when Marybeth says, “Ooh! Here comes the food!”

  The waitress emerges from the kitchen with two steaming plates of Tuesday Special. As the plates get closer, I recognize the fare—meatloaf, mash potatoes and gravy, and corn soufflé. I wonder if the meatloaf has been sitting around since Tuesday, but I decide that’s still relatively fresh considering the expectations I came in with. Marybeth stares at us expectantly, so I grab a fork and dig in.

  The flavors hit me hard and fast. Sweet and spicy and tangy all at the same time. The whole spice rack must have gone into this one dish. I take another bite and then another and then spear some of the corn soufflé and scoop up some of the potatoes and finally try a bite of crunchy slaw. It’s all equally delicious.

  I turn to Lincoln. He’s shoveling in food at the same pace as me. “Looks like we picked the right exit,” I say.

  Mouth half-full, he grins and says, “Looks like it.”

  “Now Marybeth,” I say, feeling more comfortable with a steaming plate of food in front of me. “I’m sure you have some more interesting stories to tell.”

  She winks at me. “Oh, where to begin?”

  Sixteen

  By the time we’re done with our lunch (which was the opposite of a quick pit stop), we’ve heard Marybeth’s full life story and exchanged numbers and promised to keep in touch. “Let me know if you’re ever in Santa Cruz!” I tell her.

  “I’ll definitely do that,” Marybeth says. Before we leave, she asks the waitress to pack us two extra slices of pie for the road. As we go to pay, she shoos away our money. I try to insist, but she says, “You youngins in love traveling the country need to save every penny you can. Besides it’s my treat to treat people.”

  We finally relent, grab our to-go bags, and head back out to the warm parking lot. I know we’re running behind schedule and will probably get to Santa Cruz late, but it doesn’t really matter. I’ll sacrifice an hour of waves for the Tuesday Special any day of the week.

  It’s hard not to doze after a meal that heavy, but Lincoln and I play marry, bury, screw, which might be weird to play with someone who’s lips have been on yours on a regular basis for the past few weeks, but coming up with combinations like the Loch Ness Monster, Springsteen circa Born to Run, and the tooth fairy makes it so weird it’s not weird at all. For the record, I would marry Springsteen circa Born to Run, bury the tooth fairy, and screw the Loch Ness Monster, and Lincoln would marry the Loch Ness Monster, also bury the tooth fairy, and screw Springsteen circa Born to Run, which neither of us found the least bit surprising.

  We play the game until we feel a little delirious and a little too familiar with each other’s obscure predilections, then turn on the stereo and listen to Emery’s road trip CD on repeat, at which point I discover another rare Lincoln flaw—he can’t sing. Like at all.

  But that sure as hell doesn’t keep him from doing it.

  An out-of-pitch person belting out Rihanna’s “Shut Up and Drive” at the top of his lungs is quite the experience, especially when it takes place in a moving vehicle in which, for all intents and purposes, you are trapped.

  “Make it stop,” I moan as the song switches to “500 Miles,” and Lincoln starts singing with even more enthusiasm.

  “Never.” He grins. And sings. And grins. And sings. “I’m the driver, and the driver gets to make all the rules, and this driver says I’m allowed to sing as much as I want even if Anise is staring at me like she’s devising the five best ways to murder me and get away with the crime.”

  “Honestly, going to jail would be worth it at this point,” I mutter.

  Lincoln laughs. “Oh you’re just as sweet as honey.”

  I laugh back. But really. I do need a break from this car. With the exception of a quick fuel and bathroom break, we’ve been driving for five hours straight since lunch. My cramped legs protest. I need a surfboard or a skateboard or at least a little walking to stretch them out. I glance out the window at the signs whipping past and spot one that says “Reno: 12 miles.”

  Reno.

  My mom’s postcard. The bar.

  I close my eyes and try to visualize the name. I think it was called Kelsey’s or something. “Let’s get off here.”

  Lincoln furrows his brow. “Really? Not sure we can do much gambling until we’re twenty-one.”

  “Let’s just look around. I need to stretch my legs.” I pull out my phone and Google “Kelsey bar Reno.” Sure enough the bar pops up. I look up directions. “Actually I have somewhere specific in mind. Take a right off the exit.”

  “Have you been here before?” Lincoln asks even though he knows very well that I’ve never been anywhere but California and Nebraska and now a string of highway between the two.

  “I’ve just heard of this bar. It’s famous or whatever.”

  “A bar? You do realize I’m only eighteen, and you’re still shy of that. You packing fake IDs and didn’t inform me?”

  Actually I do have a fake ID back in Santa Cruz. I used it once to buy beer for one of our bonfires, and even though I didn’t get caught, I still had a near heart attack using it. From that point on, I always let Tess buy our booze since the possibility of getting arrested doesn’t seem to faze her.

  “It’ll be fine,” I say. “I think they serve food there too. They probably only ID you if you want to drink.”

  I continue to give Lincoln directions, and he follows them quietly for a few minutes. But I know that quiet won’t last. Eventually he asks, “Anise, how have you heard of a bar in Reno?”

  I don’t answer. Maybe if I just keep giving directions instead, he’ll let it go.

  “Anise?”

  “Take a right after the next light.”

  “Anise? I do have the power to get back on the highway if you don’t answer me.”

  Lincoln knows the basics about my mom—terrible mother, runaway, abandoner. But he doesn’t know exactly how much all of that has eaten away at me over the years.

  Lincoln doesn’t have his birth mom either, but it’s different. For whatever reasons, she left his life for good. He’s not haunted by the possibility that she’ll crash back into his world at any moment…or that she’ll never crash into his world again. He might not understand this magnetic pull I’m feeling toward this place solely because she might be there, or at least was once there.

  My instinct is to lie, like how I always hide thoughts of my mom from my friends. But no lie comes. And even if one did, would I really tell it to Lincoln? Lincoln who has been nothing but honest with me since the day we met and he called my eyes seaweed green.

  I stare out the window. “My mom sent me a postcard from there earlier this summer, so I…you know…”

  I’m waiting for the onslaught of questions. Why do you care? Why does it matter? What’s the point? What do you expect to find?

  An onslaught of all the questions I’m asking myself.

  But all he says is, “Okay.” And then. “A right up here, yeah?”

  My throat feels even tighter than my chest. I manage to say, “Yeah.”

  It’s barely six in the evening, but the Reno strip is already lit up. Huge billboards, flashing lights, an illuminated sign arching over the street that reads, “The Biggest Little City in the World.” It’s like a miniature version of Vegas—or what I assume Vegas looks like from the movies. Casinos and clubs line the roads. We pass a 24/7 marriage chapel, and Lincoln turns to me and asks, “Want to get married?”

  “I�
��m going to have to take a pass on that,” I say, but I wonder what it’d be like to marry Lincoln. I envision us twenty years down the road, raising a brood of surfers, the fifth generation in my Santa Cruz house. But then that image blurs and sparks. Because Lincoln isn’t the type to settle in Santa Cruz. He’s the type to take twenty-four-hour road trips halfway across the country because it sounds like a fun idea. The type to hike the PCT for months. The type to fly—okay sail—around the world.

  Lincoln has grown up on the road. I would never ask him to go sedentary for me.

  “Where next?” Lincoln asks.

  I continue to direct him, past the main strip and down a few side streets to an alarmingly darker and more abandoned side of Reno. The lights here flicker accidentally instead of on purpose, and no crowds of tourists snap pictures. My stomach clenches uneasily.

  “There it is!” Lincoln lurches the car to the right and pulls into a gravel drive-thru. A wooden sign with the word “Parking” in red paint directs us toward an unpaved parking lot. The lot is surprisingly full considering the early hour. But then again, this seems like a city that appreciates a bar at all times of day.

  I bite my lip as I watch a man and a woman step inside, leaving their large motorcycles in the lot. Both of them are dressed in jeans and black leather. Both of them look at least twice my age and twice my size. “Maybe this was a bad idea,” I say.

  Not just a bad idea. A pointless idea.

  What am I trying to achieve anyway?

  Do I think I’ll find my mother sitting at one of the barstools, sipping on a piña colada, twirling the toothpick umbrella? Do I think she wrote that postcard and never left? Just sat and sipped one fruity drink after another? This isn’t a Detective Dana novel. She didn’t leave me clues. She doesn’t want to be found.

  For all I know she’s in Santa Cruz. Or on the East Coast. Or in another country entirely.

  For all I know she hasn’t thought of me once since she wrote that fucking postcard. “Let’s go back to the highway,” I tell Lincoln.

  “Oh no,” he says. “That sign there clearly states ‘country’s best burger and fries for five dollars.’ We’re not going to pass up an opportunity like that.”

  I know if I really wanted him to, he’d turn the car around. But at this point, we’re here, right here, and later I’ll be mad at myself if I don’t at least look inside.

  “Fine,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  No bouncer checks ID or bans us from coming in. Neon beer signs pierce the dim interior, creating an almost alien atmosphere of shadowed faces and disjointed movements. I search for a slim figure with wild hair—but there are about a dozen people in the bar, and in less than a minute, I know none of them are my mom.

  I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s been months since that postcard, and since when has my mom ever stuck around anywhere for that long? I hate the bitter disappointment washing through me because it says I was actually holding on to some kind of twisted hope.

  “Come on.” Lincoln tugs on my hand. “Seats by the bar.”

  I want to leave. This was a terrible idea. But it was my idea, and Lincoln might as well get his hamburger. We sit down on two tall, vinyl stools, the kind that spin round and round. Tess would love it here. She’d twirl in her seat and make friends with the guy with the shaved head and Mickey Mouse tattoo in the corner slinging back shots.

  A bartender comes over to us. Her hair is teased with hairspray, her face bare of makeup, save dark red lipstick. She looks like she’s been working here as long as I’ve been alive.

  “Get out.” She points a thumb toward the exit.

  “We just want some grub,” Lincoln says. “Heard you guys have great burgers. And we’ll sit right here at the bar where you can keep an eye on us.”

  The bartender stares at us skeptically. “Who the hell says I want to keep an eye on you?”

  Lincoln digs into his pocket and pulls out a twenty. “Two burgers, two fries, two cokes, and then we’re gone.”

  I don’t know why the hell he’s pushing so hard to stay. Lord knows we could get back to the main drive of Reno and eat at a dozen different places. But the bartender relents, takes the money, and says, “You’re not getting any change back.”

  She walks the length of the bar to a small window opening to what must be the kitchen. “Two burgers and fries!” she shouts.

  As she walks back to fill the order of someone at the bar, she catches my eye and mouths, “One hour.”

  One hour is more than enough time for me. Hopefully the burgers will be out soon, and we can scarf them in a couple of minutes. Next to me Lincoln drums his fingers on the wooden bar to the beat of “American Girl” playing from the Jukebox. I feel him watching me, but I focus on his fingers tapping out the bum-bap-bap of the song.

  A few seconds later, the bartender slides two Cokes across the counter. They come in chilled beer steins with skinny cocktail straws. I take my drink and sip. Maybe it’s the chilled glass, but it’s the best Coke I’ve ever had. The sugar revives me, speeding through my system. I take a sip, and then another, and then I turn to Lincoln. “How much driving time do we have left?”

  “Oh, I’d say about three hours give or take. Should get in around ten.”

  Home in three hours. Back to my room with the tangled surfing medals on the wall and Tess’s quilt on the bed. Back to my kitchen with the cracked tile floor and bay window. Back to the ocean.

  My ocean.

  “Anise?” Lincoln asks.

  “Hmm?” I respond as I take another sip of Coke.

  “Maybe you should ask someone if they know your mom.”

  I thought we’d somehow miraculously moved on from that topic. I wish he wouldn’t do that, bring her up, especially after knowing me for so short of a time. But maybe that’s why he can do it—because anyone who’s known me all my life knows never to bring up my mom.

  The Coke doesn’t taste good anymore. It’s sickly sweet. I feel nauseous as the scent of grilling hamburgers wafts from the kitchen. Coming here was enough. Looking was enough. There’s no need to drag this out.

  “There’s no point,” I say.

  “Sure there is,” Lincoln insists. “Maybe they’ll know where she is.”

  “So? So I’ll just—” My thoughts have trouble forming. “I’ll just find out where she is and what? Chase her down? Drop everything and—”

  As I say the words, I realize that is what I’d want to do. Part of me at least. I’d run straight to her. Crumble in her arms and bury us in volcanic ash so she can never leave me again.

  But instead I tell Lincoln, “I’m not going to run around the country hunting down someone who obviously doesn’t want to be found.”

  Lincoln’s voice goes soft, gentle. Yet there’s still that urging. “I’m not saying you should. I’m only saying it doesn’t hurt to ask. Maybe it’d be nice to have a choice in the matter.”

  Of course it would. Because that’s the problem, isn’t it? My mom has always made the decision for us, and even worse, I’ve never known why. At the end of all my Detective Dana novels, all of the questions of a case are always answered. The doctor did it because she was in love with the patient’s husband. The fisherman did it because someone had stolen his prized catch. Again and again the motive is explained.

  I want to know my mom’s motive. What makes you abandon your own kid, not once, but over and over again? If I knew where she was, I could ask her.

  There’s always a motive.

  “Fine,” I say.

  The bartender comes back around, this time carrying two red plastic baskets filled with burgers and fries, and I say, “Can I ask you something?”

  “No, you can’t drink,” she says.

  “I don’t want to drink. I want to know if you’ve ever seen my mom in this bar.”

  The barte
nder looks at me blankly, so I ramble. “Hair my color, green eyes…probably drinking something that comes with fruit around the rim.”

  “Do you have a picture?”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, a picture.”

  I slip my phone out of my pocket and scroll and scroll and scroll. The last time I saw her I had a different phone, but amid the endless photos of beaches and friends and waves and skateboards and cousins is a picture of a picture, one that Dad keeps tucked in the drawer of a side table. The photo is of my mom and me when she came back for that long haul when I was seven, the last time I was convinced she actually might stay for good.

  I pass over the phone, and as the bartender stares at the screen, her eyes soften. Or maybe it’s the lighting. “I’m not sure, sweetie,” she says. “I don’t recognize her. A lot of people come through here. She wasn’t a regular, I can tell you that.”

  Of course not. Regular connotes a period of stasis that my mom has never been capable of. Lincoln leans forward on the bar. I’d almost forgotten he was there. “Are you sure?” he asks. “Just think a bit harder on it, please.”

  She half frowns, the wrinkles around her lips exaggerating, and shakes her head. “Sorry, I’ve got nothing.”

  “Right,” I say. I can’t believe I did this. I promised myself I wouldn’t get my hopes up, but then tricked myself into believing for even a few moments I could have an active part in our relationship. “Never mind. Thanks for the burgers.”

  She nods. “I’ll get you guys some refills on those Cokes.”

  As she walks away, I turn to Lincoln. “I’m not hungry. I’ll meet you out by the car.”

  Before he has a chance to respond, I slip off of the stool and leave this place I should have never come to.

  • • •

  I’m leaning against the car, arms crossed, when Lincoln comes outside. He’s carrying a white paper bag, probably with our food in it, because he’s the type of guy who would bring me my food even after I stormed out of a restaurant. I kick the gravel with my foot.