by Gigi Blume
“Huh?” I was still somewhere in lala land.
“Or…” his eyes dipped to my mouth. “Shut it off.”
Right. My phone. Shut it off.
I snatched the clutch from my feet and pulled out my phone. Such a remarkable little device. It was capable of so many useful things. The world at your fingertips. But presently, it was nothing but annoying. What the Bottom couldn’t wait long enough to—
“Whoa.” My eyes went wide at the sight of the little red notification icon. My phone never saw that much action on my birthday, let alone a Saturday in January. “Holly called me seventeen times. And she left fifty-eight text messages.”
Will took the box from beneath my arm and ushered me to the sofa. There were also several texts and calls from Cole and Jane. My heart sank to my gut. My first thought was for my sister or my parents. My brain didn’t have the rationale to think there was no connection between Holly and my family. But they were all I could think about.
“Is everything okay?” Will asked tentatively.
“I hope so. And then I’ll kill my friends.”
I hesitated before reading the texts. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew I wouldn’t like it. It wasn’t good. The most recent text from Holly was the first one I saw. It simply read Beth, I’m serious. Please call ASAP.
I scrolled to the top. My heart sank even more. Words flashed before my eyes.
Lydia. Worried. Missing. Jorge.
I went through every text, trying to make sense of her shorthand. It was one big blur. The room started to spin, and I suddenly felt the color drain from my face in a clammy sort of way. The phone slipped from my fingers and dropped to the floor.
“Oh, no, no, no, no.” I let my head fall between my knees, which wasn’t easy considering my dress was in the way.
“Beth?” Will’s voice sounded far away. “Don’t faint. Can I get you some water?”
I nodded with my face still in my dress. All I saw was a blur of gold fabric.
“Okay,” he said in a crisis negotiator tone of voice. “I don’t want you to faint while I’m getting you some water. I’m going to lie you down.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “I just need to throw up. Totally fine.”
“What happened?”
“It’s all my fault.”
My thoughts ran a mile a minute. What would I do? Will ran to get me a bottle of water, and I took a few sips before frantically pacing the floor. “Stupid Lydia. It’s all my fault.”
Will stopped me, holding me in place by the shoulders. He leveled his eyes to mine and spoke slowly and gravely.
“Stop right there. Whatever happened, we’ll figure it out. But you need to stop blaming yourself.”
Stop blaming myself. No. Not possible. What was Jorge doing on the Mexico trip anyway? I nodded for him to pick up the phone off the floor.
“You won’t say that once you read the texts.”
He slowly stepped away from me and picked up the phone. He showed no expression in his face save for a tick in his jaw. He would understand the story soon enough. How Lydia and Jorge left Cole’s boat and went into town. How they never returned. How Holly thought they’d partied too hard to come back, but then she noticed Lydia’s phone—and all her things—in the cabin.
Lydia never left her phone behind. Another day passed and by the evening, they were worried. Jorge didn’t answer his calls. A search in town came up null. They weren’t in the usual places. Then by some wild coincidence, a taxi driver saw them inquiring at all the hotels. He’d given Jorge and Lydia a ride out of the tourist side of town and to the outskirts. He didn’t think it was strange until he saw Jorge walking the streets the next day. Lydia wasn’t with him, but he looked chummy with two dangerous-looking men.
“Jorge,” he said in a whisper. A sad, regretful whisper.
“I didn’t warn Lydia,” I cried. “I’m the one who befriended him. I’m the one who invited him to our house. He wouldn’t have even noticed Lydia if it wasn’t for me. It’s my fault.”
Will didn’t speak to refute my self-flagellation. He didn’t confirm or deny it.
He didn’t say anything at all. It was as if he calculated how best to get rid of the problem—AKA, me. He didn’t need the publicity this would bring to his career, and any association with Lydia or her roommate was bad press. If it got out, he could shrug it off and call it an unfortunate situation, that she was just an acquaintance. But me, her friend and roommate, would be asked countless questions.
At length, he said, “I won’t keep you any longer. I suggest you listen to the voicemail messages while I get you a car.”
And that was that. He walked out of the room and, although I knew I’d see him again in the show, he likewise walked out of my life. I didn’t blame him. Who in their right mind would want the kind of drama that followed me around?
A thorough examination of the rest of my texts and several voicemails said little else, more of the same information in varying degrees of detail and hysteria. Jane would return home the next day, and Lydia’s sister was notified. I hoped they were all overreacting. Lydia was a grown woman and didn’t exactly have the best reputation for reliability. But a pestering voice deep inside kept telling me bad things happen to people when they’re too reckless. Especially in foreign countries.
Will returned in a whirlwind with Stella in his wake. She carried my backpack purse and sandals, and they both looked like they meant business.
“I’ve been looking for you for twenty-five minutes,” she said, ushering me quickly from the room. “Cole got ahold of me through Fitz and told me everything.”
“I didn’t know Jorge was going with them on the trip,” I explained. “I could have warned them.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“Do you think Lydia is in some kind of danger?” I asked, hobbling along while she and Will whisked me toward the front door.
“I don’t doubt it, knowing Jorge,” answered Will.
“Nora’s flying in right now,” said Stella. “She’ll be coming to your house.”
“Nora?”
“Lydia’s sister.”
“Oh. Okay.” The smart sister.
When we arrived at the front, a car was waiting to take me home. It wasn’t Enrique, but a guy I didn’t know. I was unceremoniously deposited in the backseat, along with my things and bid good luck by Stella.
“Listen,” she said. “Georgia doesn’t know what’s going on. I think it best we keep it that way.”
I nodded in complete agreement, but also in such a haze, I would have agreed to shave my head. It was happening too fast. Once the car door was shut, I saw Will run into his house.
Run.
Apparently, he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. No goodbye, no sentiments of concern, no encore to that kiss. Kitty wasn’t amused. And let’s not even talk about the hundred different ways to say I told you so. Because Jeff wouldn’t shut up about it the whole ride home.
28
Hold, Monsters!
Beth
“So,” said Holly in the most uncouth manner. “You’re the smart one.”
Lydia’s sister Nora had been in my apartment all of one hour when Holly arrived. I stayed up to wait for her, believing she’d come straight to my apartment from the airport as Stella had said. But Nora was far too polite, as I soon discovered, so she spent the night at the airport hotel. She made up some kind of excuse that it was too late, that she was so tired and couldn’t possibly stand a thirty-minute cab ride. But I could tell she was way too prissy to crash on a stranger’s couch. Especially a friend of her sister, and remembering her previous roommates, I didn’t blame her. No doubt she expected Lydia to hang with the unrefined crowd. If so, Holly just proved it.
The poor girl didn’t seem to know how to answer Holly. Was it a question or a statement?
“Lydia tells us you’re studying at Harvard,” I said in an effort to smooth over Holly’s in
delicate ice breaker.
“Uh… yes,” Nora answered distractedly. Her thoughts were in a galaxy far, far away. Who knows what was going through her mind. She was probably fearing the worst. I reached over the kitchen table and cupped my hand over hers. She hadn’t touched the peppermint tea I gave her. No doubt it was too cold by now. Probably tasted like toothpaste.
“We’ll find her,” I said in the most reassuring voice I could muster. “Holly’s boyfriend is in close contact with the US Consulate, and our friend Denny is searching all of Jorge’s usual hang outs.”
She slumped in her chair. “I feel so helpless. I’m not making any more progress here than I would have in Cambridge.”
“I know it feels that way, but it’s better you’re here,” I said. “For when she comes home.”
“We’re really glad you came,” agreed Holly.
Nora reluctantly nodded and sipped her cold tea.
“Do you want me to get you a warm cup?” I offered.
She shook her head and declared it was fine.
“Maybe you’d like to look through Lydia’s things for a clue.” That was a feeble suggestion on Holly’s part, but Nora agreed to it, if nothing other than to have some useful occupation to pass the time.
Most of the day was spent in the same manner. Nora quietly searching for answers in Lydia’s messy belongings, on crumbled receipts and post-it notes. She must have checked Lydia’s social media accounts every five minutes. She was restless. I totally got it. I’d be much worse off if something ever happened to my sister. As it was, I felt completely responsible, irrationally so or not.
By late afternoon, Jane came home. She wouldn’t answer my inquiries about how her audition went. Her only concern was for Lydia and tending to Nora’s comfort. Somehow, Jane was able to relate to her better than Holly or I. It was a special kind of talent. And it was so Jane.
My mother, on the other hand, had her own special kind of talent. Gossip. She’d gotten wind of the news through the mysterious grapevine in which she lived. Her timing was impeccable as usual. She called while Nora was telling us a tearful story about Lydia getting lost in the super mall when they were little. I didn’t want to be rude, but I felt I had to answer Mom’s call. It was one of those ‘hug your loved ones’ moments. I’d have felt guilty to ignore her call.
“Oh, that poor girl,” she cried. “I liked her so much.”
“You met her once, Mom.” I paired my Bluetooth earbuds, so I could be hands-free. Doing stuff like cleaning or organizing my bookshelf while on the phone relaxed me. It helped ease the hour away.
“I know I met her once, but I felt we really bonded in that time. Like a daughter I never had.”
“Except for the two you did have?”
“In addition to. Like a third daughter I never had.” She sighed. “I wanted five or six, but your dad wouldn’t think of it.”
“Okay.” I absentmindedly broke down some gift boxes leftover from Christmas.
“It’s not what you think, dear.”
“I’m not thinking anything at all, Mom.”
“He didn’t get a… you know. He’s good at math.”
“You don’t have to explain.” The last thing I needed to hear was stories about my mother’s cycles and the measures Dad took to avoid impregnating her. I crumbled some wrapping paper and threw it in the wastebasket. Post-Christmas organizing was a fun and tedious job. I’d have to find new homes for the various gifts I’d received. And then I noticed a particular gift. The book Jorge gave me. I didn’t even want to look at it. I was so disgusted. If I weren’t such a nerd, I’d have thrown it away. But it was a first-edition Hobbit. It had to be incredibly valuable. The thrift shop or wherever he got it from didn’t know the gem they had sold him. Maybe I could sell it on eBay.
Mom had moved on to her local gossip train. Something about a neighbor’s daughter getting married and how all she wanted now was grandkids. Truthfully, I kind of tuned her out because I found something in the book I hadn’t noticed before. Tolkien’s signature. It was personalized. Why didn’t I catch on to that before?
To Martin. A small boy with big dreams. JRR Tolkien
Martin. Martin Darcy?
“Mom, I gotta go.”
“But I haven't finished telling you about—”
“Sorry, bye.” I hit the end call button and immediately pulled up a search for Tolkien’s date of death. 1973. It was possible Will’s father met him as a young boy. Then again, there could be any number of people with the name Martin who happened to know the famous novelist. More realistically, someone from England. But then I remembered Will’s letter. He said Jorge had taken some of his father’s books. Was he really so stupid as to give one of them to me for Christmas?
I gingerly filed through the aged pages for annotations or notes perhaps. Something that could give me more answers. And then I found it. Tucked deep in the pages where it was sure not to fall out, was a strand of hair enfolded in a scrap of waxed paper. And next to that was a small photograph of Will’s mom.
It was evening when Cole finally called. They were on to some lead, but that’s all he could say. Even he didn’t have the details. All we could do was wait. One last thing he said before he hung up. “Go to the theatre tomorrow and do your best. I’ll be home Tuesday.”
None of us wanted to sit like hens and wait, and we certainly didn’t want to do our final dress rehearsals while poor Lydia might be lying in a ditch somewhere. But Cole was right. It was all we could do. Wait, hope, and rehearse. Opening night was less than a week away.
And so off we went on Monday to the theatre, morbid and sad. I felt like a jerk, singing and dancing and doing comedic bits. It was weird without Lydia there. But Nora tagged along to claim a small piece of her sister through the osmosis of the art.
“I’ll feel close to her just being there,” she said. So we brought her with us. The other absences in the cast were deeply felt. We knew Cole was still in Mexico, but our stage manager did a perfectly fine job at running the show. Stella cut out early, but Will didn’t show up at all. After all the new insights I had about his character, how I was now sure he was a man of virtue, he didn’t bother coming to one of the last rehearsals before opening night. I was Lydia’s oldest friend in the cast. We were practically sisters. So were Holly and Jane. We were heartbroken and worried. But we came to rehearsal. Where the heck was Will? Did he want to wash his hands of this whole mess? Would the actor that played Samuel have to step up last minute to do Will’s part? Those thoughts did nothing but stress me out. But then I had another thought, and I became incredibly depressed. What if I never saw Will again? What if he was gone from my life forever? I mean, I knew it was inevitable. We’d part ways after the run. But now that I was faced with the reality of it, and with the possibility of it being sooner than expected, the idea of it was unbearable. I’d gotten so used to his presence, now that he was gone, I wasn’t whole.
My heart galloped in my chest, and all those rocks in my stomach (the ones I’d been entertaining for weeks as the ingredients for my loathe pie) turned to fairy dust, and I felt lighter than air. Oh. My. Hamilton. I was in love with Will Darcy.
How incredibly inconvenient.
Why me? Why was I the stupid girl in the movie that didn’t realize until it was too late that the perfect guy had been right in front of her all along? I wanted to throw popcorn at myself.
There was one good thing that came of the whole day. Bing and Jane were on speaking terms again. They weren’t quite back to the same old smooching in the dressing room antics, but the mutual affection was written all over their faces. It was a sliver of light in an otherwise gloomy day and only a matter of time before we could ship their names together. Jing got my vote.
“Did Bing tell you why he skipped out on Stella’s charity?” I asked as we hung up our costumes for the day. The corners of her lips hitched in the silent grin of someone with a secret and a flush of pink dotted her cheeks. But I was having none of that. There woul
d be no more secrets.
“Spill,” I demanded. I even did the Wonder Woman pose.
After a few moments, she burst at the seams and said, “He was in New York!”
And I knew immediately that Bing in New York at the same time as Jane was no coincidence. As it turned out, he learned she was there through friends. I guess the theatre world really was that small. He followed her there in a grand romantic gesture just to apologize. Like he couldn’t do that in California. Nope. Had to go to the Big Apple.
But I was happy for her. If anyone deserved a second chance, it was her.
“I hope you can find a good guy too.” Her eyes were rimmed with happy tears as she gave me a gentle hug. “There’s someone out there who’s perfect for you.”
“You mean someone who’ll put up with my snark?” I laughed.
“It’s not snark,” she said. “It’s intelligence.”
Wonderful. Now she would get me crying.
“Well…” I said with a wink. “Maybe someday I’ll come across another guy like Colin.”
“That will make your mom happy at least.”
I know I said no secrets. Perhaps I should have told her all the details of the gala, how we walked the dog and sang and almost kissed in front of the tree.
“Oh no!” I cried.
“What?”
My ornament. The beautiful year bulb Will gave me. I left it behind in my haste to get home. I would tell her eventually, but it wasn’t the right time. I sighed and shook my head slowly.
“Oh, I just remembered something I lost.”
Wasn’t that the understatement of the year? It was more than the ornament I’d lost. So much more. I’d lost love.
“They found her!”
Jane and I shot our heads to the sound of the approaching voice. Holly burst through the dressing room, waving her phone in the air. “She’s okay.”
“Lydia?” Jane exclaimed. “How did they find her?”
“No time,” she answered. “Nora’s already in my car. Let’s go.”