Don't Try To Find Me: A Novel

by Holly Brown

  What if I had scrolled through her texts a week ago? A month ago? Maybe she’d be down the hall, asleep, instead of . . . I don’t want to finish that sentence, don’t want to articulate the possibilities.

  By now, I’ve basically accepted that Marley ran away. But what no one seems to fully grasp is how dangerous it is for a young girl on the run, especially one whose life has never required survival skills. Even though she left on her own, if she stays gone, that might not be her choice. It might be out of her control.

  Even her father refuses to see it. Paul is downstairs in his office, on his own computer. If we follow protocol, he believes, she’ll be home safe and sound within the week. Fifty percent of runaways are, he repeats. Tomorrow, we’ll pay a professional to search Marley’s devices, see if we can recover what she wanted to stay hidden.

  I, of all people, should have sensed something. I know firsthand that you can look one way and feel something else entirely. That you can do things no one would suspect of you, all while going about your ordinary business. You never miss a day of work (or school, in Marley’s case). You never arouse suspicion. Because mostly, people pay attention to the wrong things. All the clues you drop, intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or subconsciously—they go unnoticed. You escape detection. Then one day, you simply escape.

  I click on a picture of Marley with her friends Sasha and Trish, out by Trish’s pool. Sasha’s laughing, with one of her curls boinging into her mouth, and Trish is looking sun-kissed and glamorous, camera-ready as always. They’re flanking Marley, who appears to be squinting into the sun; blown up, her smile seems forced. Her arms are tight across her stomach, hiding it maybe, but the effect is that as her friends hug her, she’s hugging only herself. Alone in a crowd, is that the expression? I think of her last post (“Tell me you’re with me so far”), met with silence.

  The picture is from three months ago, the last time Marley stayed at Trish’s house. Paul and I dropped her off and then spent the weekend at a bed-and-breakfast in San Francisco. The room was all in white, everything eco-friendly, luminescent bath gels smelling of lemongrass, a giant soaking tub, and rose petals across the ivory bedspread that actually looked a bit lurid, like the scene of a crime. We had sex because it had been a long time and because we were supposed to. At least, that was my motivation. “You were so quiet,” Paul said afterward, and he’d tried so hard, with all of it, that I didn’t have the heart to tell him I hadn’t come. I hadn’t felt much of anything. When we picked Marley up at Trish’s house, she was in no mood to talk either. Paul tried to fill the void for the first half hour of the drive and then gave up.

  Why didn’t I ask Marley what happened that weekend? I mean, I did, in the laziest way, just a quick “How was it?” when she first got in the car. But I didn’t follow up later that Sunday night, or the next day. I never questioned her silence.

  I’m going to call Trish, once it’s morning. I need to know what happened that weekend. Marley never asked to do another overnight, and now that I think of it, I can’t recall the last time Marley mentioned Trish. I peruse Facebook. Trish never “liked” anything again.

  I’ve been so self-involved lately. Clueless. I never thought about the root of that word before, that you really can miss all the clues.

  The other parents are right. I am to blame.

  When Marley was little (seven, maybe? the happy years blur together), we used to play the opposite game. We had to speak in polarities. If we were thirsty, we’d say, “I definitely don’t want a glass of water.” I don’t recall how the game was first invented, but Marley loved it.

  I can still see myself holding her close as she convulses in giggles, and I say, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you . . .”

  It suddenly occurs to me that the note could be in opposite-speak. She was writing to me in code. I begin the translation:

  Try to find me.

  I won’t be okay. I’ll be worse.

  Yes, I’m onto something here. This could be it.

  I hate you.

  I toss the iPad to the floor and begin to sob.

  I’M IN THE SUNROOM, on the silken window seat. It’s Marley’s favorite spot. “I feel like a cat,” she once said, luxuriating in the light that poured through the windows on all sides of her.

  I’m staring out at the barren fields, where the almond trees used to be. I don’t know how long I’ve been immobile, hoping that Marley will come into view, when Paul speaks from the doorway that divides the sunroom from the dining room. Just beyond him is the piano that came with the house. None of us play. But it’s a pretty old piano, and its dark wood seems to fit. It belongs here, more than any of us do.

  “Rachel,” Paul says again, impatience nibbling at the edge of his tone. He might have said it more than twice, more than three times, I don’t know. It’s eight A.M., and he’s showered, shaved, and dressed. I’m still in my pajamas.

  “It’s Saturday,” I say. “She probably won’t come back on a Saturday. There’s too much going on.” It feels good to say it. I’m modulating my hopes, not pinning them all on Saturday. There are so many other days of the week for her to return.

  Paul stays in the doorway. I can feel that he wants to come closer, but it’s hard to penetrate my force field. I’m sure other couples lean on each other at times like this. They’re not in separate rooms, on separate computers; one of them doesn’t crash out on the living room couch while the other lies sleepless in bed. It’s not Paul’s fault, though. He’s reached for me. I can’t seem to reach back.

  “I spoke to Officer Strickland,” he says. “Someone saw our poster and called in a tip.”

  My heart beats wildly. It’s our first lead.

  “A man said that Marley approached him on the street not far from the school. He drove her downtown and saw her go into the bus station. Officer Strickland spoke to the ticket sellers who were working that day, but no one admits to selling Marley a ticket.”

  “What do you mean, they won’t admit to it?”

  “They’re not supposed to be selling bus tickets to minors. They should have asked her for ID. So now they’re covering their asses.”

  I stare at him, outraged. “We need to go down there. We can tell them that we don’t want to get them in trouble; we just want to know where Marley went.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Without me?”

  “You’re so emotional. Which isn’t a bad thing,” he adds hastily, “unless we’re trying to convince people they’re not in any trouble.”

  I stare out at the fields. If I squint, I can practically see her in the distance. Long hair flying, Ugg boots tromping.

  “Then I was thinking I’d drive to the old neighborhood and through San Francisco and put up flyers. Maybe I could talk to some people.”

  “Which people?” It comes out sharply. I’m offended by his characterization of me as “emotional,” yet I’m proving his point even as I speak. Our marriage has become a bramble bush. It’s so easy to get nicked.

  Paul finally enters the room and sits beside me on the window seat. He wants me to look at him, and I would, but I’m crying again, and embarrassed about it. Emotional. Of course I’m emotional. My daughter’s out there all alone. Or not alone, which might be worse.

  “Why aren’t you emotional?” I ask.

  “Inside, I’m a wreck. I thought she’d be home by now.”

  “Would it kill you to show the wreckage every once in a while?”

  He smiles, his eyes sad. “I don’t know. Maybe it would.” Then his gaze follows mine, across the field. Is he picturing Marley, too? “We can’t both go to San Francisco. One of us needs to be here in case Marley shows back up.”

  He’s right. The thought of Marley taking the bus somewhere and then all the way back only to find the house empty . . . It could make her feel unloved and abandoned. Maybe she’d go away all over again. We’d never even know she’d been here.

  “I listened to your voice mail,” he says. H
is eyes are tender in his tired face. “The one you left for Marley before you realized her phone was still here.”

  “No, I knew her phone was here. I just couldn’t stop myself from talking.”

  Another smile. “We’ll find her, Rach. Or she’ll come back on her own. It’ll be okay.”

  “When she comes home, what do we do? Do we punish her? Put her back in therapy?”

  “We hug her for a long time, and then we ground her until college.”

  In the end, Paul follows his plan and I stay behind. I call Trish at exactly nine A.M. She answers the phone groggily. She must not turn it off even to go to sleep. Neither did Marley.

  “Mrs. Willits,” she says. I envision her stretching awake: long black hair and long limbs. Marley’s pretty, in my estimation, but even I have to admit that Trish is striking. She’s not waiting to grow into her looks like Marley is. She’s arrived. “Have you heard anything from Marley?”

  “I was hoping you had.”

  “No. But I’ll definitely call you if I do.” I sense evasion in her tone.

  “Trish, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to imagine that you’re a mother. And that means that there’s this person who you love more than anything. There’s this person that you’d die for.” Crap. I’m going to cry again. “And she’s taken off. She bought a bus ticket somewhere, and you don’t know where. But you know that bad things can happen to a fourteen-year-old, alone.” I pause. “Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “You’re worried about Marley.”

  All those AP classes are really paying off. “Yes, I’m worried. Because she’s not safe out there. You’re not helping her if you lie to me. You’re not protecting her.”

  “I’m not lying.” She sounds piqued rather than empathetic. My little exercise backfired.

  “But is there more to the story? Is there something you haven’t told me?”

  “It’s just”—she hesitated—“Marley isn’t going to call me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I told her not to call me anymore. Didn’t she tell you? It was, like, months ago.”

  After the sleepover. “No, she didn’t tell me.”

  “We weren’t texting that much after she moved anyway. Then she came down here and she—well, I’m just going to tell you. Maybe it’ll help or something. She went out for a while and she came back shitfaced. Like, really drunk. And I was mad, because if my parents caught her, they’d think I was drinking, too. Besides, she was too drunk for us to really even hang out.”

  “Where was she?” Whoever she was with then, she could be with them right now.

  “I don’t know. I was so mad, I didn’t even want to talk to her.”

  “Do you think she was with a boyfriend?”

  “Marley’s never had a boyfriend.” She sounds certain and smug.

  I lean my forehead against the window glass. “Did she get drunk a lot?” In other words: Am I the world’s most oblivious parent?

  “I don’t know. She never used to be into it. When we’d go to parties, she barely had anything. But after she moved, it felt like there were all these things she didn’t want to tell me. It felt kind of like she had a secret life.”

  The words every parent is dying to hear. “I was going to ask if there were things on Facebook that she was telling you and her friends, things that I couldn’t see because I’m her mother. You know, private thoughts.”

  “I don’t know her private thoughts anymore.”

  I’m unsettled after I hang up, like a soda that’s been shaken. I take an inventory of all the alcohol in the house. All the bottles of wine are accounted for. I sip the vodka, just to make sure Marley hasn’t replaced it with water, and grimace a little. It’s still the morning, after all, and that’s straight vodka. Then I take another sip, a bigger one. It might be morning, but my daughter’s missing.

  I call Paul but he doesn’t answer. He could be in the middle of questioning some employees at the bus station.

  I tried Paul first. I did. Now I can’t resist the next phone number. I’ve fought with myself for months, and sometimes I lost. I lost big the day Marley disappeared; I just didn’t know how big. But no one could blame me for needing to talk to someone right now.

  “Marley’s missing,” I blurt when he answers.

  “Oh, Rachel,” Michael says in that voice like a warm bath. I know he’s glad to hear from me, that he’s been aching to. I also know that he really does care about Marley. I just wish he sounded more surprised by the news. “How can I help?”

  Day_3

  THIS SUPER-SCARY THING HAPPENED. It was the middle of the night, and I couldn’t hold my pee anymore. I thought about waking Kyle up and asking him to walk me to the bathroom, but I decided I need to just depend on myself now. I could do this.

  I started to walk back, row by row, talking myself through it. The bus was half-empty, and practically everyone was asleep. A few people had their overhead lights on and were reading, which seemed comfortingly normal. I was almost to the bathroom, and I couldn’t see any smoke or movement in the back seats, so even the trolls under the bridge were asleep. See, I told myself, you’ve got this under control.

  I was reaching for the bathroom door handle, almost home free, when I heard this urgent whispering. “Carolina, Carolina.” I could tell it was directed at me, and the name sounded familiar, but I hadn’t told anyone my name was Carolina. Had I?

  I didn’t want to look over at the speaker, but it would have been really rude to ignore her. So I looked over, and it was Hellma. I remembered that Carolina was her daughter, the one she was going to visit. And I thought for a second that Hellma was just talking in her sleep, dreaming of her daughter. Then for some reason, I glanced down and saw a needle sticking out from between her toes, like Hellma had forgotten it was even there, that’s how high she was, how SOMETHING she was. Lost, maybe. Her eyes were hooded but open.

  “Carolina,” Hellma whispered again. It was like her face had become sunken over just the past couple days. She was more skeletal than I remembered, as if the life had been leaching out of her.

  My heart was going two hundred beats a minute. I didn’t know what Hellma wanted from me. Maybe she was mistaking me for Carolina, but that didn’t make sense. Carolina was a grown woman. But then, it’s not like Hellma was in her right mind.

  “Carolina,” Hellma said, louder, and I didn’t want her waking the other passengers. I didn’t want any of this, I just wanted to pee and get back to my seat.

  So I said, “Yes?” and hoped that was the magic word. I said it like a question, but she could take it any way she wanted. It could be, “Yes, I’m Carolina.”

  It did the trick, and Hellma closed her eyes. She said, definitively, “Carolina,” and seemed to nod off, the needle still projecting from her foot.

  I was shaking as I went into the bathroom, shaking as I peed. I’m sure some of it went on the seat, and normally, I feel like if you make it, you should wipe it up, but no way was I going to touch that seat. I was too scared of catching whatever all these people on the bus had, whatever Hellma’s got.

  When I reached my row, Kyle was still asleep. I forced his arm up and around me, needing the protection, but from what, I couldn’t exactly say.

  I barely slept. This morning, when Kyle got off the bus, he gave me his cell phone number. He told me I could call him if I was ever in trouble. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” I said, like I was a character in a movie. Like I was carefree.

  Hellma got off the bus, too. She saw me, I’m sure, but she didn’t even wave good-bye.

  Now I’m alone, and I’m really feeling it. I keep trying to forget the way Hellma looked last night, like some figure from beyond the grave or something. I tell myself I can’t catch what she’s got. She’s an old drug addict. It’s sad and all, but it’s not contagious. My life is nothing like hers.

  I’ve got a seat all to myself. In front of me is a new guy. He’s in an army uniform and says he just came back
from his third tour in Iraq. He’s telling the guy next to him all about it. He starts out boasting about his patrols, about shooting bad guys. It sounds made-up, like maybe he’s just been playing video games. Then he’s talking about partying—“You need to party just to shake off all you’ve seen, man”—and finally, he’s describing this dead Iraqi family and their dead baby. And I can tell that part’s not made up, because he’s mad about it.

  His voice got louder. “They shouldn’t have been killed, and the way that baby’s guts were splattered . . .”

  I closed my eyes. I felt a little sick. The guy next to him must have felt it, too, because he said, “Shh.” The soldier got angrier. He said, top volume, “People should know what’s going on in their names. I’m not some dirty fucking secret.” But he did shut up for a minute. Then he muttered, “Not even fucking worth it.”

  They sat there next to each other, and I could feel the tension radiating off them. Finally, the other guy came and sat next to me. I guess he didn’t want to do it too quickly, didn’t want the soldier thinking he’d won.

  He doesn’t smell great but he doesn’t seem dangerous or anything. I could have done worse, I bet.

  I need to stay alert, though. Whoever was cooking their drugs in the bathroom could still be on the bus; the ex-cons are all around me; that soldier is obviously strung pretty tight.

  I repeat my coping statements: I can handle this. I’m stronger than I think.

  It’s not that long now until I arrive. I decide to listen to my iPod, but I won’t let myself listen to the “Teen Angst” playlist, because she made it. Honestly, though, I’ve never loved any music more.

  It’s like I was meant to discover it. I mean, what are the odds that I would get the idea to take up jogging, would do it at the crack of dawn so no one would see me, and in the half-dark, would grab my mother’s iPod by mistake? Then, because I didn’t want to run back to the house, didn’t want to take any more steps than I had to, I went ahead and listened.