Don't Try To Find Me: A Novel

by Holly Brown

  That was when I really and truly started hating eighth grade, and I still had most of the school year to go.

  One of the worst parts, though, was realizing my mom had such a low opinion of me. Her defense had been, basically, “Marley’s a follower with no mind of her own.”

  On the drive home, we didn’t talk. It’s like she didn’t even want to know the details, didn’t want to know me. She’s a blind woman telling me I’m beautiful. She can’t seem to see through anything at all.

  YOU WANT TO HEAR a secret, Journal? I’ve been taking walks during the day while B. is in class. I leave the apartment unlocked and the back door propped open and so far, nothing bad’s happened. I’ve still never run into another inhabitant. The artists B. told me about must be nocturnal, like badgers.

  Sure, I could ask for a key. But B. would want to know why, and it would be this whole conversation I don’t feel like having. It could eventually lead to his doing that scary tight look, like he’s just had Botox, or his other scary look with the intense eyes, like when he thinks I’m not being patient enough about Disappeared.com.

  Mostly, though, he’s not scary at all. He can be so vulnerable—like after sex, when he’s sweet and silly and plays with my hair. Or after he’s seen his parents and he needs me to be appreciative and loving (basically, his anti-parents). Because of them, and because of his ex-girlfriends, he’s got trust issues, and that means I can’t tell him every little thing. I’m protecting him, really.

  I love him, but one person can’t be a whole world, so I go out walking. If I head in a certain direction, within six or seven blocks, it gets less industrial. Then it’s downright suburban: square houses with triangular roofs like a child’s drawing, and lawns with sprinkler systems, and people out walking their dogs.

  The heat wave is over, so it finally feels and smells like autumn. The leaves are falling, and they’re all these great Crayola-box colors like burnt umber and russet. I can wear my Ugg boots again.

  I found this dog park I like. The different breeds and mutts frolic on the grass and kick up leaves like mini-cyclones. Sometimes they come up and lick my hand as I sit on a bench nearby. I don’t talk to anyone. I smile vaguely, the way you would if you were an exchange student and didn’t speak the language. I try to look detached but not unfriendly. It must be working. No one’s approached me, and they smile back.

  See, B.? I’m still a secret. I’m still your secret.

  He’s already talking about the weekend, thinking maybe we’ll go away somewhere, to another motel. He seems really into cheap motels, like a fetish.

  I don’t like sex yet, but I like what comes after. Sex is the price of admission so I can get to this great place with B., a place where he drawls things like “You are the best.” It makes me wonder who else he’s slept with in his life, if I’m the best. But I don’t think he means only that. He means I’m his girl. He says that, too, in the same drawl: “You’re my girl.” I love that.

  He can be sweet in other ways, too. Like tonight, he surprised me with a book of baby names. When I first saw it, my stomach dropped. I can’t have a baby with him! I’m friggin’ fourteen! He started to laugh, realizing what I thought. “No, it’s for you,” he said. “For the new you.”

  I started to laugh, too. So he is still thinking about Disappeared.com. That’s good to know.

  We sat on the futon with our heads close together and looked over the lists of names, starting with “C.” (It seemed too boring to start with “A.” We don’t want a “B” name, because it’s too cutesy: B & B. Gag. And we’re going to skip “M” altogether because I don’t want anything too much like Marley.)

  “What do you think of Cadence?” he asked. It was about the fifth name on the list.

  “Impatient much?”

  “No, really. I think it’s pretty. Cadence. It means ‘melodious.’”

  “That’s nothing like me.” I laughed.

  “It could be you.” He looked at me with serious eyes. It feels good, being taken so seriously. “You can be anyone.”

  “Cadence,” I said. I peered down at my hands, trying to imagine Cadence playing the piano like I never could. Nah, still just me. “I don’t think so.”

  “‘Calla,’” he read aloud. “‘Resembling a lily; a beautiful woman.’”

  I shook my head.

  “You’re not even thinking about them. You’re just shooting everything down.” He didn’t seem mad, exactly, but he did look a teensy bit tight around the mouth. I feel it in my stomach when he looks like that.

  “You can’t find your new name on the first page!” I smiled, hoping to dispel the tension. “I’m going to have that name forever, so it has to be right.”

  “Okay,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “You win. It’s your name.”

  The truth is, Calla is a beautiful name for a beautiful woman. I’d spend the whole rest of my life trying to live up to it and failing. Time to change the subject. “Candida,” I said, pointing. “It means ‘white-skinned woman.’ Isn’t it also a kind of yeast infection?”

  He laughed. “Why don’t we just call you Monistat, then?”

  “Or Anusol.”

  We riffed for a while, and the tension dissipated.

  “I really like Charlotte,” he said. “I always have.”

  “I like it, too.” It conjured images of the spider, and the pig. Charlotte and Wilbur. My mother used to read that book to me, and when she was finished, I’d say, “Again!” and no matter how many times I said it, no matter how boring it must have become for her, she’d always turn to the first page and start over. She was good at doing the voices, making them really sound like whole different species from one another.

  “You look sad all of a sudden,” he said.

  “It’s just so huge, renaming yourself. You know how when your parents do it, they have no idea who you’ll turn out to be? They can pick something they think is pretty, or strong, or interesting. But I have to do it knowing who I am and who I want to be. So it’s way harder.”

  “Who do you want to be?”

  That’s what I love about B. How seriously he takes me.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Where did your parents get Marley from?”

  “My mother used to watch this soap opera called Another World. It’s not on anymore. Once I watched some of it on YouTube. It was as cheesy as you’d expect. Marley was a twin, the good twin, the boring one, and her sister had all the fun and made all the trouble. I guess my mom wanted me to turn out to be a good girl.” I smiled to try to overcome the lump in my throat.

  It suddenly came to me: The other twin, the bad one, was named Victoria. Vicky. Just like I told Kyle. Was that my subconscious talking? Or my unconscious? I always get them mixed up.

  “You’re good.” B. put his arm around me and squeezed. “But you’re not boring.”

  “Thanks.”

  It cast a pall over the night, though, thinking of my mother and how my name came about. I kept getting sadder and sadder. I’m more attached to Marley, stupid as it is, than I knew. More attached to my mother’s dopey idea of naming me after a soap opera character than I like to admit.

  It’s hard to understand how the same teenager could watch Another World and listen to the amazing music on the “Teen Angst” playlist. But then, I probably have a lot of contradictions, too. People are jigsaw puzzles that don’t exactly fit together.

  Anyway, thinking about where I came from, thinking of my parents lying together with a baby name book as her belly got bigger and bigger and then finally deciding Marley was the one—it made me feel closer to them. That’s not what I want to feel.

  This is my life. I’m taking charge of it. Choosing who I spend it with, what people will call me, all of it. I’m in control.

  Why does that thought make me feel anxious instead of calm?

  “Your mom fucked you over,” B. said. “You have to remember that. I’d never do that to you.”

  �
��I know.” I snuggled against him again. When I closed my eyes, I imagined it was Dr. Michael’s arms around me, and I felt totally at peace.

  Day 13

  “IS THIS MRS. WILLITS?” a voice inquires. He sounds young and polite, but studiedly so.

  I sit bolt upright in bed and glance at the clock. It’s not quite noon. I’ve spent hours trying to recollect stories Michael told me about parents who foist their own pathologies on their children, imagining whether Paul and Marley could claim the starring roles. The more extreme tales leap to mind, but they’re also obviously wrong (I’m quite certain Paul doesn’t have Munchausen syndrome). The others lack staying power. I wish I’d paid better attention; I wish my memory hadn’t gone bad this year, like rotting fruit. If Michael wanted me to know something about my family, he should have just come out and told me.

  “This is Rachel,” I say. “Is this Kyle?”

  “Yeah. I’m really sorry about Marley.”

  I have the sudden crazy thought, What if I’m talking to Marley’s murderer? What if this is part of some sick game he’s playing, calling in as a tipster with his fake manners and apologies?

  “Mrs. Willits?”

  “I’m still here. So you were riding the bus with Marley?” I try to keep my voice level.

  “Until Chicago.”

  “That’s a long way. Did you two talk much?”

  “You could say that.”

  “I’m trying to figure out why she left. When I love her so much.” I’m also trying to figure out why she sought out Dr. Michael again, without ever talking to me, and whether I can trust the man I married. But first things first. “Was she mad at me?”

  “Honestly?” He pauses. “She didn’t mention you.”

  Ouch. I hadn’t realized until just then how much better anger is than apathy. “How did she seem?”

  “Seem?”

  I see why Paul thought this might not be worth my while. “Her mood. Was she sad or happy? Confused, maybe?”

  “Honestly”—there’s that pause again—“she didn’t seem like anything. She seemed normal.”

  At least we know he really was sitting next to Marley. She’s nothing if not normal seeming. But underneath, that’s a whole other story, one I’ve never gotten to read.

  Another call is coming in. Michael again. Another apology, straight into my voice mail.

  I realize what Kyle means when he leads with “Honestly.” He’s about to tell me something that he thinks will hurt my feelings. He’s a good kid, and perceptive, too, because he is hurting me. My daughter ran away and boarded a bus and acted like it was an ordinary day. That’s how much it mattered to her to leave us behind.

  “She didn’t say a lot,” he adds. “About herself, I mean. She asked me questions. She let me do all the talking.”

  “Did you like her?”

  “What do you mean?” He sounds like he’s treading lightly, maybe because he’s hoping not to have to start any more sentences with “Honestly.” I’m hoping for that, too.

  “I mean, did you like her. Was she a likeable person.” I feel like a stranger might have a better sense of her than I do.

  “She was funny. She was blunt, and that made her funny. You know what I mean. She’s your kid.” Then he sounds a little flustered. “Not that she’s a kid, exactly.”

  “She’s fourteen. She’s exactly a kid.”

  “She said she was eighteen.”

  There was something in his delivery, something . . . cagey. “Kyle, did you do anything with her?” My heart speeds up. “Did you have sex with my daughter?”

  “No! We just hooked up. Kissed for a while, I mean. She was a good kisser. Not that you want to hear that.” He babbles when he’s uncomfortable. Marley does the opposite. She shuts up, shuts down. “I’m not that much older than her. I’m only seventeen. That shouldn’t be illegal or anything. I just told her I was eighteen.”

  “So you were both lying about your ages?”

  He doesn’t want to answer. He thinks he’s already said too much. But I’m so happy to have a teenager really talking to me.

  “Why were you lying about your age, Kyle?” I say, my voice gentle. I feel tenderly toward him. It’s like he and Marley were kindred spirits who found each other.

  “I got on the bus and I thought it was a chance to play someone else. Like a game. And Marley was cute, and we were kind of flirting, and I started telling her all these things about my life in college. I’d lived in Arcata my whole life, so I knew all these things, all the places to hang out, and I told her I was dropping out of school.”

  “And the truth?”

  “The truth is,” he says slowly, “my mom lost her job and got pretty depressed and she sent me to live with my father in Chicago until she gets it together. That’s where I am now, living with my dad.” I hear the sorrow in his voice. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

  “Did you tell Paul?” I’m hoping he didn’t. It would show I really can do it—I can connect with a teenager, and that means someday, I can connect with Marley, too.

  “No. He just wanted me to prove I really met Marley. He’s all business, huh?”

  “Not always.” I think of yesterday, the sequential “I love you”s. “He’s putting a lot into this search.”

  “No shit. I saw the website. It’s pretty amazing. I hope she comes back. It seems like you guys love her a lot.” Now he sounds wistful.

  I don’t want to hang up. “How’s it going, living with your dad?”

  “Okay,” he says in a way that tells me it’s not.

  I have this feeling like even if God doesn’t exist, karma does, and if I can do something for some other parent, for some other kid, if I can get a notch in the ledger, then maybe . . . “I’ve learned a few things since Marley went away. One is, I would give anything to know what she really felt when I had her here, even though I was too scared or too lazy or too something to ask.” No response. “Maybe you should talk to your dad about how you feel.”

  “Maybe.” He’s doubtful.

  “Give him a chance to make changes so you’ll be happy. I wish Marley gave me that chance. You can tell your dad about what happened with Marley and what I’m saying to you now.”

  “You think I should threaten to run away?”

  “Definitely not.” I’m lousy at advice. No wonder Marley didn’t want to talk to me. “But I know that if Marley had told me what I was doing wrong, I would have done anything to fix it.”

  “You might just think that now, because she’s gone. You know, she raised the stakes. Like in poker.”

  Smart kid. “You might be right.”

  “But you still think I should talk to my dad.”

  I don’t know a thing about Kyle’s circumstances or his dad. “I think,” I say, “that I probably don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  He laughs. “That’s cool. My dad always thinks he knows what he’s talking about.”

  “Annoying, isn’t it?”

  “Big-time.” I hear a voice in the background. “I’ve got to go. Good luck with Marley. I’ll be following on Twitter.”

  “Good luck to you, too.” Then it occurs to me. “One last thing. She must have been going by some other name, right? She probably didn’t call herself Marley.”

  “She said her name was Vicky.”

  There it is: her message to me. Victoria and Marley, from Another World. Marley’s the good twin, Vicky’s the bad one. Marley is acting out her wild side, but she still needs me and somewhere inside her, she knows it.

  Because she could have picked any name, but she picked Vicky. She left a clue that only I would find.

  Five Months Ago

  Facebook

  Hey, Mar. I woke up in the middle of the night. I was dreaming about my dad, about things he used to do to me. And my mom doing nothing about it, like always. I wake up and my heart is going so fast.

  Since you, that doesn’t happen so much. I go to bed thinking about you, and I sleep till
morning. Sometimes I dream about you. I need you, Mar. So much.

  I wish I could call you right now, but I don’t want to wake you up. Even with the time difference, it’s like 1 a.m. for you, and you need your sleep. Not to be beautiful. You’re beautiful no matter what. You’re this one pure thing, the one that’s different, in a whole world of shit.

  But you need your sleep, with your family moving and all. I keep thinking about what you said the other day. I know you wrote JK, but you meant it a little, didn’t you? About how if you’re going to move, you should just move toward me.

  I found this website, Disappeared.com. It’s all about how to disappear and reappear as someone else. Poof—you’re gone. Like in a magic trick. Isn’t that what you were telling me, about how your doctor used to teach you tricks? This would be our trick. Poof, and you’re here with me.

  You’ve got a good thing going where you are. Your parents can buy you anything. But they don’t love you like I do, Mar. I know what it’s like, dealing with snotty rich people. I go to school with them. I see them get all the breaks. And I know if you leave your family to be with me, some things are going to be harder. But some things will be a lot easier, too, because of how we feel about each other.

  Isn’t it the hardest thing in the world to be all the way across the country when we should be touching each other? I know you can choose love over money. I’d choose you over anything.

  I’m lying on the grass right now and I’m looking up at the stars. I uploaded a picture for you, so you could see what I’m looking at.

  I’m playing a song by Gavin DeGraw called “Where You Are.” I uploaded it so you can hear what I’m listening to when I think of you. What it says, maybe better than I can, is that we need to do whatever it takes to be together. I know I’m willing. Are you?

  Like Gavin says—tell me you’re with me so far. Please, Mar, just tell me.