Don't Try To Find Me: A Novel

by Holly Brown

  It’s my turn for the spousal check-in. I call Paul, while Michael is forced to listen silently. He’s not forced, actually. He could slip out of the room and give me privacy. But he’ll torture himself by listening, because he needs to be in the loop. He wants to keep abreast of his competition.

  I oblige by putting Paul on speaker. I’m angry with him, too, for his potential deception and his potential role in Marley’s running away. I feel like I want to hurt both of them. I want to tell Paul, “Hey, guess who paid a visit?” Paul never liked Dr. Michael, never trusted him fully, but then, Paul didn’t trust psychiatry itself.

  I bring myself back to what Paul is saying. He’s in the airport, heading for New York. He wants to know if I watched the video of his Chicago interview, the one he’s posted to FindMarley.com. “Candace thought it went well. What did you think?”

  “I agree.” I haven’t watched it and don’t intend to. It’d only serve to remind me that I screwed up San Francisco and have been blacklisted. I trust that Paul did a bang-up job, as per usual.

  He starts telling me about the latest tips, and I drift in and out, like he’s a radio with an inconsistent signal. “. . . this kid Kyle seems credible, knows identifying details about her, and says they were on the same bus. But he got off first, and she didn’t tell him where she was going, so it’s not that helpful—”

  “If he can tell us the bus he was on, the route and the dates, then we can contact the company and find the bus driver and see if he remembers Marley,” I say, tuning in fully, my voice rising in excitement. “The driver could tell us where Marley got off.”

  “I already did all that. The driver doesn’t remember Marley.”

  “Another employee covering his ass, do you think?”

  Michael shifts next to me. I can tell he doesn’t like seeing me so engaged with Paul.

  “I don’t think it’s CYA,” Paul says. “I talked to the driver, and so did the police. He seemed sincerely upset about Marley. The problem is, they get unaccompanied minors all the time. He assumed an adult bought the ticket. And Marley—you know how she is. How she gets overlooked.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I know how Marley is.”

  “But if Kyle is as reliable as I think, then we know she went at least as far as Chicago,” Paul says.

  “And we can get the rest of the bus route and know she’s in one of those places?”

  “Unless she transferred buses.” He sounds so calm. How can it not drive him crazy, all the dead ends? He does all this and we’re no closer to finding her.

  He must not think of it that way. He must see it as a building chain of information or a gathering storm. Being Paul, he has some metaphor to sustain him. I should know what it is, as his wife.

  He does all this, and another man was in his bed last night, lying in between his wife and his Bible.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask, the guilt lodging like a coin in my throat.

  “There’s a lot of reason for optimism.” It’s a stock answer, the one he’d give anyone. He’ll probably give it later today, to a New York newspaper. “How are you?”

  “Struggling to be optimistic.”

  Michael moves to pat my hand, but I snatch it away. I should take Paul off speakerphone, walk to the window, and talk softly to him.

  But what if he really is guilty of something, if his intentions and his actions deviated?

  “You should get more involved with FindMarley.com,” Paul says. “Put up some new content. I’m sure everyone would love to hear from you.”

  Who’s everyone? The Internet vultures who use us as prurient entertainment? If they knew that Michael had been here last night, in my bed . . .

  “It’s just so personal, you know?” I say. “Anything I write to her, or about her—the whole world can read it.”

  “That’s kind of the point.”

  “I don’t want to be too exposed.” It’s an ironic statement as I lounge in my pajamas in front of another man. The other man, the blogosphere would call him.

  Paul pauses, and for a second, I think he knows. He left a camera behind in the bedroom for this purpose. I’ve been caught. It could be sweet relief, who knows. Have it all out there, and Paul and I couldn’t avoid certain conversations any longer. Almost twenty years of emotional constriction undone in a single day.

  Then he says, “You could go through old home movies and decide which videos to post. One of the volunteers—Jack’s a good choice—could help you convert them into a file that could be uploaded . . .” He’s off and running.

  That’s the last thing I want to do. I can’t look at young sweet Marley without thinking about what could be happening to her right now, on the street somewhere east of Chicago.

  “Do you have Kyle’s phone number?” I say.

  “Yes.”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “Really? I’m pretty sure I got all the information he had.”

  It’s not about information. I want a connection to Marley. I want to know what they talked about, how she seemed. Excited, scared, angry? Kyle could be my link.

  “I’d like to talk to him,” I say. “You want me to be more involved, right?”

  He hesitates. He doesn’t want me second-guessing him or out-sleuthing him. This is his show.

  “Hello?” I say.

  “I’m just looking through my notebook to find the number.” So I misread his hesitation. As he reads off the digits, I feel a rush of warmth toward him.

  “I love you,” I say. It might be gratitude, or shame at having Michael here, or even a stab to Michael’s confidentiality-protecting gut, but there, I said it.

  Paul drops the official tone and says softly, “I love you, too, Rach,” and my guilt increases exponentially. “Are you still there?”

  “Yes. I’m just—I don’t know what I am.”

  “I love you,” he says again, “and we’ll get through it. We’ll bring her home.”

  My eyes fill with tears. He’s probably wanted to tell me he loves me for a while; he needed me to say it first. He needed me to make it permissible again. Michael says he loves me, too, all the time, and doesn’t seem to need permission. They’re both crazy, loving me. I don’t know that I love anyone but Marley, and that includes myself.

  As I disconnect the call, Michael stands up. He’s still in his clothes from yesterday, but his hair is in disarray. He’s a handsome older man, he really is. But in this light, he seems more older than handsome. He gives me a hard stare.

  “What?” I say.

  “What’s all that love talk? Since when?”

  “Since this call.”

  It sounds like an evasion, though it’s not. I really think my head might split open, with a thick crack down the forehead like a fault line. I need a pill. I need something.

  Michael gazes out the French doors. “I’ve tried to be good to you, Rachel. Always.”

  This again.

  “And to Marley. I tried to help her, gave her the best treatment. I cared for her very much. Through you, Rachel, I’ve come to fully love her, like she’s one of my own kids.”

  He kneels before me and rests his head in my lap. I can’t help it, I have to stroke his hair. It seems cruel not to. “I love you more than he does,” he says. “I’d take care of you and Marley.” Then, “Please don’t stop.” He’s referencing my fingers, which have gone still. So I start again, but self-consciously this time, aware with every movement that I’m doing what he wants, not what I want.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” he says. “I was caught in a difficult position. I made what I thought was the best choice.” He pauses, like he’s gathering strength. “Marley showed up at my office a while ago. Before your move. She wanted to start therapy again.”

  My fingers stop. “What?”

  “It would have been unethical for me to treat her again, obviously, given what I feel for you. I was caught off guard.”

  I yank his head up by his hair. His eyes plead for under
standing that he won’t find. I stand up and he spins around, still on his knees.

  “I told her that my caseload was full. I didn’t say anything about you.”

  “So my daughter came to you for help, and you turned her away, and you didn’t even tell me?”

  “I told her to talk to you. I said you’re trustworthy and you love her.”

  “Well, thank you for recommending me.” I feel like my hair is on fire. “She didn’t talk to me. You must have realized that. Obviously, I would have mentioned it if she had. I told you everything.”

  “I wanted to respect her privacy. And I believed in her strength, that she had the fortitude and resources to—”

  “What was wrong with her?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

  “You didn’t ask?” I glare at him, and he stares down at the floor. “She was in trouble! In pain! And you, you . . .” I can’t even finish my sentence. “This is the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard. What is wrong with you?”

  “I was in a difficult position. I tried to tip you off. I asked you if you noticed anything out of the ordinary with Marley; I told you to always keep the lines of communication open. I said problems like hers can recur.”

  “I don’t remember that.” I deflate slightly. How could I not remember? If I never saw the signs, if Marley didn’t trust me enough to talk to me, if I didn’t coax it out of her when Michael encouraged me to, then whose fault is this really? “You need to leave.”

  His mouth twists up into a repulsive grin. “You told me that twelve hours ago.”

  “You think this is funny?”

  “No! I feel like shit. I’ve felt like shit ever since you told me Marley was missing, and I wondered if maybe I could have helped her. If I’d done things differently back then . . .” He falls back on his haunches on the floor. “I should have asked her more questions, you’re right. I didn’t feel like it would be ethical to get involved, because of you.”

  “I thought she was okay,” I say, incredulous at my own ignorance. “I thought she’d never need you—or someone like you—again.”

  “I’m sorry. I made a mistake. You can forgive an honest mistake, can’t you?”

  I can’t believe I let him sleep in my bed. I might have slept with him, if he hadn’t been such a coward.

  All of last night rises through my esophagus, and I run for the bathroom.

  Day_13

  LAST NIGHT, I DREAMED I was back in junior high, in Principal York’s office. Mr. Jennings was there, too. He kept pointing at the Spanish test on the desk that separated them. “I know she’s the one who stole the answers,” he told Principal York. “She” was me.

  I was in a hard-backed chair facing Principal York. I shook my head and repeated, “No hablo inglés,” until my parents raced in.

  My mother had this long glittery scarf on, and it kept lifting high in the air, like it was catching a breeze. When I looked up, there was no ceiling, no roof, even. It was a baby-blue sky with a ton of marshmallow clouds. I pointed, but no one seemed concerned.

  “Pay attention, Marley,” my dad said, admonishing me. “This is about your future. Your whole future hangs in the balance.”

  My mother pulled me to my feet, wrapped her arms around me, and whispered, “Look, Marley. Such beautiful clouds.”

  For some reason, I woke up crying. B. wasn’t next to me. I guess I slept through his alarm and now he’s at school. Part of me would have liked to have him here for comfort, but the rest of me is relieved to be alone. I’m still confused by what happened at the motel. I should think about it, and what it means. I just really, really don’t want to.

  Mr. Jennings did haul me into Principal York’s office and accuse me of cheating. His face really was red with fury. My dad wasn’t there, though. It was the four of us: Principal York, Mr. Jennings, my mom, and me.

  I remember how when the meeting first started, I hadn’t made up my mind about whether to confess. I was guilty, after all. Then I had to sit there and listen to Mr. Jennings. I had to watch him, too, with his stupid tomato face and his flatulent body. All year, he’d stood at the front of the room and let out nasty gas, and then he’d punished whoever laughed. (Someone always laughed.) He was the one with the problem, but he was making it our problem. Farting is funny, and everyone knows it. I don’t care how old you are. I got detention three times that year because of him, and I’d never gotten detention in any other class, ever. It’s the advantage of being Ordinary Girl. Mostly, I go unnoticed, even when I’m acting up.

  So anyway, Mr. Jennings realized that something was wrong because people who never got 96s and 98s and 100s suddenly did. (You have to be some kind of idiot to cheat on a test and get every single answer right.) I was one of the 96s, whereas normally I got in the B+ range. So it wasn’t that crazy for me to ace a test every once in a while, and I thought it would be fun to show my parents a 96 in Spanish.

  I probably could have gotten a 96 by working harder. But where’s the fun in that?

  I don’t know exactly why I first stole the answers. Because I could? Because Mr. Jennings was gross? Because it made me feel like a badass for a little while? All of the above? I figured out that Mr. Jennings didn’t lock his desk drawer and when his lunch period was. It was so easy to run in, grab the answer sheet, copy it all down, and put it back.

  If I’d stopped there, it would have been fine. But I decided to give a cheat sheet to Trish, and she asked if she could give one to Wyatt, who wasn’t doing so well in Spanish. She said she’d tell him I was the one who’d gotten it, and how I’d gotten it, which made me look incredibly ballsy. I should have said no, but I felt the pull to not be Ordinary Girl. To be Ballsy Girl instead, superhero for a day. And it was Wyatt. I wasn’t really crushing on him full-on anymore, but I had some residual feelings, like a bruise that’s not entirely healed.

  That first time, it was only Trish, Wyatt, and me. But then they were after me to do it again, like it was an amazing trick that only I could do. How could I say no?

  I should have, because the next time, it got leaked to half the class, and Mr. Jennings got suspicious, and people named names. Well, one name. Mine.

  It wasn’t Trish, because she never got busted. Her scores were already high. She was only cheating because she wanted to have sex with her boyfriend instead of studying. But I think that was the beginning of the end for our friendship. I started to see her for the manipulator she really is, and she started to see me as a liability. She didn’t mind a cheat (obviously), but it’s pretty lame to get caught.

  Mr. Jennings said that three people had given my name. “I questioned them independently,” he said, looking smug, “and they all said Marley was the ringleader.”

  I turned and gaped at my mother. Everything about me said: Me? A ringleader? It’s crazy!

  “Marley doesn’t lead,” my mother said. “She follows. So if she actually was cheating on her Spanish test—which also doesn’t sound like her—it was because someone pressured her into it, not the other way around.”

  I remember how angry I got right then. Not at Mr. Jennings, but at my mom. She didn’t think I had the guts to steal answers or the ethics to say no if someone tried to get me to cheat.

  I almost confessed on the spot. But then I thought, No, I’ll make her go to bat for me instead. I’ll make her my pit bull. She hates confrontation, but she’d never let me get railroaded.

  “Let’s ask Marley that,” Principal York said. “Marley, please be honest. We just want to help you. Did you take the answers to the test and distribute them to other students?”

  I looked back and forth from my mother to Principal York with the kind of hurt expression I thought the wrongfully accused would have. I ignored Mr. Jennings completely. “No, I wouldn’t do that.”

  He shook his head, incredulous and enraged. To Principal York, he said, “With all due respect, I’ve been at this for fifteen years. They don’t just confess.”

  “Do you have any
proof?” I asked.

  “See, that’s the question you ask when you’re guilty!” Again, to the principal: “We’ve got three other kids who say she’s the one.”

  “Mom,” I said, “I did not cheat. I studied really hard. You saw me at the kitchen table until, like, 11:00.”

  She saw no such thing, but she was trapped. “Marley studied hard,” she said, resigned.

  “Who said I did it?” Now my hurt was a little genuine. I’d done them a favor, and they’d repaid it by ratting me out. Please, I thought, don’t say Wyatt.

  Mr. Jennings wouldn’t answer. It’s like he was being spiteful. If I wasn’t going to confess, he wasn’t going to give me his sources.

  My mother saw I was upset and took it as further proof of my innocence. “They might not like Marley. They might be trying to scapegoat her.”

  “Three different people!” Mr. Jennings exclaimed. “Who I asked separately.”

  “They were probably friends, and they decided ahead of time that if they got caught, they’d blame Marley.” My mother looked at Principal York. It was like she and Mr. Jennings were opposing lawyers, waiting for a ruling from the judge.

  “That is possible,” Principal York said. Jennings got overruled!

  Man, was he pissed. And I was loving it.

  “Marley’s a good girl,” my mother said. She thought I had no guts or imagination, but at least I was a good girl. Whatever that means.

  In the end, my mom and I won. Since Mr. Jennings was a douche with no proof and I had no record of “prior misbehavior,” I got away with it. Oh, and Mr. Jennings belatedly started locking his desk drawer.

  I could have felt great about it. It’s like getting in a car accident and walking away without a scratch. But I learned all kinds of stuff I didn’t want to know. Like, I found out where I stood in the pecking order (no one would have told on Trish or Wyatt). When I asked Wyatt point-blank if he’d given my name, he said no but he wouldn’t look me in the eye. So obviously, he used me to get the answers for him, and then I was totally disposable. I told Trish what happened, that it sucked to have people turn on you, especially when one of them was Wyatt. She shrugged and said, “But you got off, right?” Apparently, I was boring her.