This is Not a Love Letter

by Kim Purcell

  “Yeah, he’s a happy guy, in a quiet guy kind of way. I mean, he’s not laughing all the time, but he laughs, for sure.” The words stream out of me. “He’s got a great laugh.” Your laughter is the most rewarding laughter of anyone I’ve ever met—it’s like taking a gulp of cold water on a hot day.

  The detective holds his pencil and pad up, waiting.

  “He’s real thoughtful, too, you know? If someone’s having a bad day, he’ll do something to cheer them up. Even people he doesn’t know that well. And he gets me flowers all the time, writes these notes that he folds into airplanes, even for his mom and his sister. It’s the kind of thing he does. Sometimes he prints out photos—nobody does that, right? He’s a real good listener. And he never tells people’s secrets, not even to me.” I glance at the detective. He’s staring at me. Yes, I miss you. I guess that’s clear. I stop talking. If I’m going to be a babbling idiot, this is not going to go well.

  He gives me a kind smile. “Sounds like a real solid guy,” he says. “I’ve been talking to lots of his friends and they’re all saying the same thing. Can you tell me about the last time you saw Chris?”

  “I was with my friend Michael at the mall. He did the rescue with me? He’s a guard friend.” I’m repeating friend like I have friend-in-mouth disease. “I mean we don’t usually do things outside of work.”

  “And?” He nods, urging me to go on.

  “There was a goofy song playing, like disco? So we started dancing. And that’s when Chris saw us.”

  He stares at me like that’s a bad reason to dance. “What did he do?”

  I sigh. “Lately, he’s been getting jealous real easy. Even though Michael is gay. I mean, Chris took off running. I called out his name. He wouldn’t stop.” I sniff, weirdly, and wonder if he’s trained in lie detection.

  Why the hell did I say that? I didn’t call out your name. You know that. I know that. Michael knows that. The salespeople at Foot Locker know that. It’s an easy lie to figure out. But it just flew out of my mouth like a little blue bird, flipping and spinning and flapping its way into his ears.

  “What time was this?” He scribbles away on a pad.

  “Around four thirty?”

  He raises those caterpillar eyebrows. “After that, you went to work?”

  I’m nervous now that he’s tracking my every move. “We don’t work until seven on Fridays. We went to the food court and got some dinner. I had a burger.” I don’t know why I add that, but it seems like the kind of detail you should add if you don’t want to look like a liar.

  “Why’d you go on this break?” he asks.

  Why isn’t he asking me about the Heights guys? “He wants me to live with him while he goes to university. He knows I’m taking a year off before college to save, but I don’t want to follow him around. I’d be this small town loser girlfriend from high school.” That word surprises me. I don’t usually think of myself as a loser. “He wants to get married.”

  He winces. Yep, everyone thinks that’s a dumb idea, not just me.

  “I don’t want him to mess up his life over me.” I wrap my arms around my body. “But it was a stupid fight.”

  The Burger Throwing Incident

  We were in your truck, in my driveway, and I was finishing my burger.

  You had your hand on the upper thigh of my jean shorts, and you were squeezing my leg, trying to make me listen. The hand was sexy, but I was just shaking my head, chewing the hamburger in my mouth. “I love you,” you said. “You’re my everything. If I don’t have you, the rest of it means nothing.”

  All I could think was: Oh my god, I can’t get married. Neither can you. No way do I want to end up like my parents.

  I finished my mouthful. “You’re going to college.”

  “Not without you.”

  “Then we need to go on a break.” You tried to talk, but I held up my hand. “We need time to think. We need a little perspective.”

  The edges of your mouth turned up like I was being funny. “Perspective?”

  It made me mad that you were mocking me. I know I sounded like a mother. Not my mother. But someone’s mother. You can’t blame me—I’ve been the responsible one in my family for years, and that’s not saying much. “One week. No texting, no calling, nothing. Or I’m breaking up with you for good.”

  Then I jumped out of the truck, still holding my burger, and slammed the door. You ran around the truck after me. “This is stupid, Jessie.”

  Even then I knew it was stupid. I stopped in the middle of the lawn, next to the tire. “One week,” I repeated, and then I took a bite of my burger and turned to walk into the house.

  You grabbed my arm and spun me around. “We are not taking a break.”

  I didn’t know what to do with this different side of you—I’ve never seen you angry before. You never grabbed me before. Maybe, if I’m being real, I thought it was sexy. It was like you were finally tough, like every other guy in my town. I know that’s messed up. But then, the burger lodged in my throat and I started coughing, right there, on my lawn.

  It could have gone down differently if I didn’t start choking. Maybe we would have gone into my room and started making out and I would have forgotten all about us needing a break. But you rushed to get me your Coke inside the truck and you thrust it at me and I drank it.

  When I finally stopped coughing, you laughed and said—do you remember this?—you said, “You’d probably choke to death if you didn’t have me around.” Then you gave me that arrogant smirk of yours, and it just made me want to kill you—not really, it’s just an expression.

  “I would not.” I was dead serious, even though you’re right, I’m always choking on things. I swear, my tongue is too big.

  You took a step toward me like you were going to grab me again and I flung the burger at you. It was an instinct, that’s all, but I’ll never forget that stunned look on your face. I’d never thrown food at you before. Or at anyone.

  “Jessie, baby,” you breathed.

  “Don’t act like you’re the only good thing in my life,” I yelled. “Mr. Perfect. I’ll be fine without you. Fuck.” You just gaped at me, but that didn’t keep me from going on. “I feel like you’re a friggin animal that’s swallowing me whole.”

  Me, calling you an animal, I could see what it did to you. Your hand hovered in front of your stomach.

  I don’t know why I said that. You know how I get when I’m mad. I was a 9.5 on the Jessie Scale of Anger. I’m sorry about so many things, but most of all, I’m sorry about this. How could I call you an animal? I didn’t mean it like that. But I should have said sorry right away. Instead, I tried to justify it. “You always act like you need to take care of me, because I’m so useless, and I’m sick of it.”

  Your arms hung at your sides like I was a vampire sucking all the blood out of you and you were just letting me do it.

  “I’ll be fine without you. I was fine before you. And I’ll be fine after you. I don’t need you to take care of me. Or anyone else.”

  You reached your hand out to me. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Don’t touch me,” I shouted like a maniac. “You think I can’t live without you for a week? I can. I’ll prove it to you. Seven days. No calls, nothing.”

  You stayed very still. “Jessie, come on.”

  I wondered briefly how things could go so bad so quickly. An hour before we’d been laughing in the Dairy Queen drive-thru. But now you said I couldn’t make it without you, so you wanted to get married? My parents married young and look at how well that worked out for them.

  “I mean it.” Then I stormed into the house.

  You sat out there in your truck for ages, waited for me to come back, and then finally, you started it up and drove away. Soon as you were gone, I wanted to call you, but I didn’t. Because I’m stubborn like that.

  Every minute of every hour you’re gone, I wish I could reverse time back to this moment. I’d beg for forgiveness. I’d tell you I didn’t mea
n it like that. I’d say sorry, and you wouldn’t be missing.

  11:51 AM Sunday, the detective

  I tell the detective the basics of our argument, but I don’t tell him how I called you an animal—I honestly didn’t mean it in a bad way, and it’s embarrassing. I don’t want him to see me like that.

  He takes notes even after I’m finished talking, but finally, he looks up. “I got to tell you, Jessie. It seems like he took off. He has a history of this. His mom said he called friends in Brooklyn this week.”

  “He did?” I think about the pistachios receipt. Maybe you did go to Brooklyn. “But he wouldn’t have taken off without his truck.”

  “His truck’s been giving him some trouble lately. Maybe he took the bus. Or hitchhiked. There are many possibilities.”

  “He wouldn’t make people worry like this.”

  “I bet if we give it a day or two, he’s going to show up.”

  “You know about those guys who jumped him, right?”

  He nods slowly. “A couple people mentioned something happened,” he says. “It sounds like it was just a fight.”

  “It wasn’t a fight—he got jumped,” I say. “It was Friday night three weeks ago, same time, same place. They attacked him. He didn’t fight back.” I tell him about what they did, how they called you the N-word, about your ribs.

  McFerson’s staring at me again. Maybe looking for odd tics. I wish I knew what he was thinking. Those huge eyebrows are distracting.

  “Do you know any of their names?”

  “Just Dave Johnson. His dad owns the Honda dealership?”

  I wait for him to write it down. Then I explain, “Chris wouldn’t fight back. He has a policy against violence. He believes in peaceful resistance.”

  I look at him to see what he thinks about that. Most people in our town would say a guy in that situation has to fight. But the detective doesn’t blink. “He seems like a pretty stand-up guy,” he says.

  “He is a stand-up guy.” I’ve never said stand-up guy before in my life. “I’m telling you, we need to organize a big search for him. He could be real hurt somewhere, he could have broken bones. We need dogs, everything.”

  His gray eyes sparkle, like he’s laughing at me. “Jessie, you think we have a canine division in Pendling?”

  “You could borrow dogs from like, Seattle. And we have search and rescue here,” I say. “They should be looking for him. Maybe he fell in a ravine.”

  He nods. “I understand you’re worried, but it’d be hard to get lost off those trails. Too many roads.”

  “Anything could have happened,” I argue. “People could volunteer; they could search the woods. He has a lot of people who want to be doing something to help. They keep texting me.”

  “I’ll talk to search and rescue.” He smiles. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “We’ll do what we can, Jessie.”

  I can hear you laughing, somewhere, saying, “Nope, she doesn’t give up.”

  “Here.” He writes down his cell phone number on the back of his card and flips it at me. “All right, if you think of anything, you call me, any time of the day or night.” His thick eyebrows jump up. “We’re going to figure out what happened. Don’t worry.”

  And for now, I believe him.

  12:02 PM Sunday, a new phone

  After the detective leaves, I get changed and wave at Michael across the deck as I leave. He waves back. Valerie turns and waves too. It’s weird to leave early. It feels like I’m getting fired in the middle of my shift, only everyone wouldn’t be waving.

  I check my phone. It’s dead. And I don’t got time to wait and try the rice method for drying out my phone.

  I ride fast to the phone store and go inside to buy another one, even though it seriously drains my bank account. I cannot afford to be out of contact with you for one extra minute. The entire time I don’t have a phone, I feel panicky that you’re calling me or texting me, that you need me.

  Outside, I lean against the glass on the store. A half-drunk beer bottle stands beside me, like it’s my friend. Just down the block, I see two town drunks heading into Joe’s strip club.

  Text after text slides into my new phone. Nothing from you.

  A bunch of people are asking if there’s news. I guess everyone’s finding out now. I text Josh about making a game plan to try to find you.

  A text pops up from an unknown number. A wave of excitement washes over me. Maybe it’s you. Then I read: Hi. It’s Raffa

  This is the first time she’s texted me. So sweet. I’m becoming a big sap while you’re gone, seriously.

  Me: Want to come to Josh’s? We’re making posters

  Raffa: Can’t…Mum wants me here

  I smile. She’s started calling her mum because of her love of Harry Potter and all things British.

  Raffa: Can you ask her?

  I call your mom and she says no. I try, really I do, but she’s firm. “Can I come over later?” I ask.

  I can’t hear your mom because someone’s yelling at me. “There’s the lifeguard!” It’s a girl, pointing at me, like I’m a celebrity. Talia. I almost didn’t recognize her without her saggy bathing suit, but those big eyes and long eyelashes are hard to miss. She’s waving wildly. “Hi, hi, hi!!”

  I wave back and smile at her. And then I look up at the guy she’s with. It’s Dave Johnson.

  “This is my uncle!” She gives him a tight squeeze from the side like he’s her favorite big teddy bear. “He picked me up!”

  Johnson lifts his chin up in a cold hello. Eyes of a killer.

  But that little girl Talia loves him. It’s clear by the adoring way she’s blinking up at him. Did Michael tell him about secondary drowning? Why didn’t her parents pick her up?

  “Jessie, are you there?” Your mom.

  The phone is still on my ear. “Yeah,” I say, “I’m here.”

  “You come by later, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay.” We hang up.

  “She saved me!” Talia is yelling at Johnson. “I almost drowned!”

  “Thanks,” Johnson says, and grabs her hand. “Come on.” Then, he ducks his head and disappears with Talia into the store.

  Wow—so Dave Johnson takes care of his niece. I guess all kinds of monsters have people who love them.

  My voicemails have loaded up. None from you. But my mailbox is getting full, so I delete all the ones from people I know. They’re just calling to find out what’s happening and I don’t have answers.

  I text you: Pleeeaaase call me. I love you

  Now that you’re missing, apparently I have no problem saying or writing I love you. And then, because I want to hear your voice on your voicemail, I call you. It doesn’t go to voicemail. Not right away.

  It rings.

  My gut tightens. It hasn’t been ringing. All day yesterday it went straight to voicemail. But now it’s ringing. Five times.

  Finally, the voicemail clicks on: “Hey. This is Chris. You know what to do.”

  Oh my god. Someone’s turned on your phone.

  12:15 PM Sunday, Josh’s house

  Josh is holding a yellow writing pad when he throws open the door. A pencil is sticking behind his ear. His curly hair is bouncing from his head, no product. Dark circles shadow his eyes. He stares at me, kind of like a mad scientist who never sleeps.

  “Guess what?” I say. “His phone rang.”

  “So?”

  “Every time I called him before, it went straight to voicemail. Which means it was off. But now it rings. So someone must have turned it on. Someone has his phone. Or he does. Or—I don’t know.”

  “Call him again.” He jerks his head up at me, like, hurry.

  I put it on speakerphone and we stand in his doorway listening to your phone ring. Five rings. You don’t answer. It goes to voicemail. The voicemail is still full.

  “You have to tell the detective,” Josh says.

  When I call McFerson and tell him, he s
ays, “It might just mean someone else found his phone.”

  “Can’t you track it,” I say, “if it’s on?”

  “We’re trying. We already requested cell tower info, but it’s harder to get tracking on phones for adults.”

  “He’s not an adult!”

  “He’s eighteen, so he qualifies as an adult.” There’s a pause. “Jessie, have you considered he might just not want to be found?”

  “Oh my god.” I hang up on him.

  Josh gives me a look. “Maybe you shouldn’t hang up on the detective.”

  “Whatever, he’s not helping.”

  “Come on.” He waves me in, and I follow him through his spotless house to the backyard. Holy crap his house is nice. His backyard too. On his patio, he has one of those fancy outdoor glass tables with comfy chairs and all-new white cushions under a white gazebo, and in the yard, there are yellow and white flowers planted in real flower beds.

  We sit down at the table, where he’s already got his laptop set up. I tell him about Johnson. “He couldn’t even look me in the eye. He’s totally guilty. I swear, he knows something.”

  Josh shakes his head angrily. “Here, look at this.” He rotates the computer. “This is what I’ve been working on.”

  I look at the screen. FindChrisKirk.com. Your website’s got a timeline, everything we know so far about where you were last seen. He’s even written down my street. “Wow,” I say.

  His mom strides out the back door, dressed in her spin-teaching gear and carrying a pretty lemonade jug with cute little lemonade glasses. “I brought you kids something to drink,” she says, and places it on the table.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “I’ll be back right after the class, sweetheart.” She gives Josh a kiss on the cheek, closing her eyes, like she’s thinking about him going missing, too. “Okay, bye.” She strides back to the house.

  Josh is already typing away, doesn’t even notice. He has no idea how good he has it. Seriously, what would it be like to have that kind of mom? I get mom envy when I see shit like that.