Last Seen Leaving

by Caleb Roehrig

  “She told me you said it, though,” I countered pedantically, even though I’d come to realize that my ex-girlfriend was perhaps the very definition of an unreliable source. “Why would she say it if it wasn’t true?”

  “I don’t know!” he responded earnestly. “That’s what I’m talking about. There was this one time that January was upset because you two were fighting about something, and she kept saying stuff like, ‘Flynn is so immature,’ and, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be dating high school boys anymore, because they’re all immature, maybe I should be dating college guys.’ And she asked what I thought, and it was obvious she wanted me to agree with her, so I said sure. But that was it.” Tugging awkwardly at the lapel of his peacoat, he mumbled, “And I never said anything about the size of your … size.”

  For clarification, he gestured to my crotch, and I could feel my face redden. “Did you tell her to break up with me?”

  “Yeah, I did,” he admitted, letting out a breath. “But the thing is, every time she talked to me about you, it was always some sort of complaint. She always seemed upset or depressed about stuff she said you did, so … yeah. I told her she didn’t deserve to be unhappy, and that if things weren’t good between you two, she should probably move on.”

  He looked down again and then up, waiting for me to say something. I was still pissed at him, nursing a grudge calcified from months of hearing how amazing Kaz was and how he was always making cases against me in absentia, cases by which my seemingly ever-credulous girlfriend was perpetually thisclose to being convinced. Now he was trying to reach out to me, and I knew the mature thing to do would be to reciprocate, and I knew I should want to do the mature thing—but I didn’t. And the truth of that was frustrating. Irritated by the whole situation, I jammed my hands into my jacket pockets. “Why are you telling me all this stuff?”

  “Like I said, I was thinking. I guess I realized that if January told you things about me that, you know, misrepresented what really happened, then maybe the things she’s told me about you weren’t totally accurate, either.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I figured at the very least I owed you a chance to tell me your side of the story.”

  “Why?” I retorted. “Because I’m so concerned with what you think of me?”

  “Fair enough.” Kaz sighed. “I guess what I owe you is an apology. January made you sound like this enormous ass who didn’t care about her at all, but”—he gestured around the courtyard—“you’re the only other one of her friends who showed up today. And you’re the only one who stopped by the toy store to ask about her, other than the police. That’s the other thing—I found out from the owners that the cops came by last week, and apparently January didn’t tell her parents she’d quit, either.” He gave me that crooked smile again, and his sheepish expression made him look about fifty percent less douchey. “I don’t know why she said the things she said, but I wanted to set the record straight. I’m sorry, man.”

  It was a weird moment. Kaz had no reason to lie to me, and no reason to want peace with me unless he was telling the truth, but I was still annoyed at having to let go of my anger. I’d spent a lot of time convincing myself of my righteousness in hating Kaz, and I sure as hell wasn’t ready to trust him, but I couldn’t justify rejecting his olive branch, either. Reluctantly, I gave a curt nod. “Sure. Whatever.”

  Pointedly, I turned to walk away, only to discover that we’d been all but abandoned in the courtyard. Mrs. Hughes was nowhere to be seen, and the only adults left were the quarrelsome older people with the map, still arguing over who should hold it and which way was north, anyway. I let out a tired sigh, realizing my own fate a moment before I heard Kaz pipe up, “So, what do you say? Search buddies?”

  We were silent for a long time, our booted feet swishing through grass that was silvered with a touch of frost left over from the morning. It was an overcast day, the sky a solid blanket of dove-white clouds, and cold, blunt light fell on the fields that rolled away from the back of the Walker mansion. We’d left the house far behind, and in the distance we could see groups of other searchers moving inexorably toward the thick woods that sprouted up to the southeast of the property. Without explanation, I veered southwest, and Kaz followed.

  “You know, January told me that her parents were rich and annoyingly Waspy, but I hadn’t really been expecting the whole Ken-and-Barbie-in-the-Hamptons routine,” he remarked with forced amiability as he pulled up next to me, his long legs easily matching mine stride for stride. He was giving me that cute, crooked smile again, standing close enough for me to catch a mingled scent of herbal soap and sandalwood cologne, and it made funny things happen to my stomach. I gritted my teeth and tried to pick up the pace. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to like Kaz as a person, let alone feel … things for him. Oblivious to my discomfort, he continued, “I mean, she makes her stepdad sound like some kind of animatronic, flag-waving caricature, but I always pictured her mom as a little more laid-back.”

  “She used to be,” I said finally, my own peace offering. “Sort of. I mean, she could be kind of difficult sometimes? Like, if January said something even a little bit disrespectful, Tammy would start sobbing and going on about all her sacrifices and ‘this is the thanks I get’ and all that stuff. But she was usually pretty cool. She didn’t talk down to you, and she didn’t act like she thought you were too stupid to understand her.… She told jokes, and she laughed a lot, and she swore like a prison guard; she was fun.” I could remember being at January’s old condo, back before we were dating, sitting on the couch and watching Tammy blitz through the room, her mousy hair bundled up in a lopsided chignon. Nobody look at me, I’m a fucking mess! I’m going to sue Sarah Jessica Parker. Sex and the City did not prepare me to be a single woman in her thirties without designer heels and amazing sex! “Tammy changed a lot when she remarried. In their old condo, she had one of the walls in the kitchen covered with that chalkboard paint so people could write all over it? In their new house, she had white carpeting put down in one of the rooms on the first floor, and now no one’s allowed to even go in there because she doesn’t want it to get dirty.”

  “Fortunately, it looks like they have more than enough rooms to spare,” Kaz remarked drily. “Still, though. Maybe January’s mom is the animatronic one. Walker owns a software company or something, right? Maybe he built a replacement Tammy and installed the Anal-Retentive Rich Lady personality as part of the upgrade.”

  “Actually, January made almost that exact same joke.” I smiled at the memory. “I wouldn’t use the word upgrade when you mention it to her, though.”

  “I can’t believe she hates it here so much!” Kaz exclaimed suddenly. Doing a one-eighty, he walked backward next to me, spreading out his arms to encompass the receding mansion and the expansive, landscaped lawn. Even in late October, under gray skies, it was pretty impressive. “I mean, sure, it’s a little over the top, but it’s still freaking amazing. If I lived here, I’d spend all my time walking around these fields with my camera.”

  “You’re a photographer?”

  “Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, not really.” He swung back around. “I’m still a total amateur. I wanted to make photography my major, but my parents—Doctor and Doctor Bashiri—weren’t too amped about the idea, and they’re the ones paying my tuition, so…”

  “So you’re studying premed?”

  “Yeah. And, I mean, I don’t hate it; I always liked my science classes and stuff, and my parents have been prepping me for a medical career since I was, like, four, so it could be a lot worse.” He sounded doubtful, though. “It’s just … I don’t love it.”

  “And you love photography.”

  “It’s, like, my passion.” He kept his eyes on his feet. “I got my first real camera for my tenth birthday, and I immediately went outside and took, like, a hundred super-close-up pictures of our birdfeeder. They were all totally out of focus, but I decided that made them ‘artistic,’ and I wanted to put them all over the walls of the dining room—beca
use that was our feeder, get it?” He was laughing, but his face was pink with embarrassment. “I thought it was the deepest metaphor ever, and that if I took pictures of my pictures in the dining room, that picture could be put in a museum or something. Ugh.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “I cannot believe what a freak I was. Thank God I didn’t have a Tumblr account back then.”

  I was laughing a little now, too, in spite of myself. “I take it your ‘human feeder’ project was not appreciated by the curators at the Museum of Modern Art?”

  “My genius is ahead of its time.”

  “I wanted to join the photography club at Riverside this year, but the only camera I have is this crappy little point-and-shoot digital,” I admitted after a moment. “Even if I see something really cool, and get it framed just the way I want it, it always looks like total garbage when I upload it to my computer.”

  “Good equipment is really expensive.” Kaz gave me a strange, tentative look. “You’re welcome to use mine, if you want. I mean, it’s probably the cheapest professional-quality camera on the market, but I can show you how it works, and I guarantee you’ll get better results than with your point-and-shoot.”

  “Oh. Um … thanks,” I managed to reply, surprised by and wary of his generosity.

  “Well, I’ll be getting something out of it, too.” He smiled again, genially. “Don’t forget that I didn’t grow up here. I only just moved to Ann Arbor a few months ago for school, and I still don’t know much about the area. You can use my camera, and I can use you as a guide to the spots that are worth photographing.”

  I mumbled something, honestly not sure how to respond to the suggested arrangement. I couldn’t figure out why he was being so nice to me, why he seemed to want to be friends despite apparently only ever having heard bad things about me. He’d cleared the air regarding the misleading stories January had induced me to believe about him, but I hadn’t returned the favor; he was merely taking it on faith that she’d depicted me unfairly as well. If anything, he should’ve been the one still intent on disliking me.

  Even if he didn’t feel the awkwardness between us, I did, and so finally I explained to Kaz the whole story behind the “disposable ponies” comment, and my strenuous efforts to make sure January hadn’t felt bad about leaving Riverside. I didn’t address her claims that I’d made her feel unattractive, because that was one can of worms I had absolutely no intention of opening—for anyone.

  He was silent for a while after I finished talking, his perfectly sculpted features tensed and thoughtful. The grass we’d been trudging through had gotten much longer, the blades licking at our shins, and I couldn’t see any other volunteers anymore. Behind us, a grove of cypress trees blocked our view of the Walker manse, and a murder of crows swooped eerily above their dark spires. At last, he sighed. “I’m sorry, man. I can’t think why she did it—why she made things sound … the way she made things sound.”

  Again, I mumbled a noncommittal reply, but the truth was that I had a pretty good idea. She’d made Kaz sound like a smooth, older guy trying to steal her away, because she wanted me to get jealous; she’d made him think I was a manipulative asshole because she was hoping that, in spite of whatever he’d said about her not being his type, maybe she could trigger his white knight reflex hard enough that he’d be willing to date her after all, if it meant rescuing her from me. If he’d responded favorably, maybe she’d even have dumped me for him and saved herself from my apparent romantic indifference.

  When we reached the creek, the water burbling softly as it snaked along in its narrow channel, I jumped to the other side and waited by the trees for Kaz to follow suit. It was then that he finally asked me where I was taking him. Pushing past the limbs of a sharp-scented pine, I said, “Here.”

  The old barn loomed into view as we cleared the foliage, looking ominous and forsaken with its rotting gray face and the square black cavity of its hayloft window, and Kaz actually gasped. “Holy shit—this looks like Freddy Krueger’s summer home or something! Does it belong to the Walkers?”

  “They don’t even know about it,” I told him, starting for the door. “I’m not sure anybody knows about it. I guess you could say it’s January’s secret hideout.”

  I was valiantly maintaining a distant hope that I would find her safely ensconced in the abandoned, dilapidated structure, holed up with a sleeping bag, a stack of paperbacks, and an old transistor radio, camping out and laughing at the breathless news reports of her disappearance. In some ways, it was an explanation that made a lot of sense. I didn’t think the police had searched out here yet, or they wouldn’t be asking volunteers to comb the area; if January had been staying with friends or family, they would certainly have already found her; and if she’d been kidnapped, there’d have been a ransom demand by now. In other ways, however, it made no sense. Roughing it with no electricity, water, or indoor plumbing was not January’s idea of a good time, and any point she had to make was surely made by now. Still, I clung to the possibility.

  Heaving open the barn door, I stepped into the musty-smelling shadows, taking a moment to let my eyes adjust to the gloom. Light stabbed through gaps in the old boards, a constellation of pale slivers, and motes drifted in the haphazard bands of illuminated space, but otherwise the cavernous structure was as motionless and silent as a tomb. Not encouraging. Nevertheless, I called out, “January?”

  There was no answer, my voice denied even an echo by the thick padding of straw that crunched underfoot. I was listening intently for the sound of movement or breathing, hoping that January was lurking somewhere and purposefully refusing to make her presence known, when Kaz barged in behind me. “This place is even scarier inside than outside. If that’s possible.”

  “I’m gonna check the loft,” I announced, heading for the ladder.

  “What’s in these stalls?” he asked, looking around as I gripped the rungs and started up. “Besides hay, I mean.”

  “I don’t know,” I called back brusquely. “Check ’em out.”

  Reaching the loft, my last vestigial hope died. In the light that washed the space through the open square of the window, I could see that no one had been staying there. Everything was exactly as I remembered it from the Friday night January and I had our big showdown: Bales of fusty hay were stacked against the walls alongside old, empty crates, the little nest where we’d argued was undisturbed, and there wasn’t even so much as a candy wrapper or crumpled tissue to suggest a human presence. It wasn’t until I took it all in, though, that I realized how badly I’d been hoping to find her up there.

  “There’s a big, rusty aerator down here, but not much else!” Kaz hollered from below as I got to my feet and set about searching the loft. “It looks like something you’d find in a medieval dungeon. I’m not going to touch it, because I’m not sure my tetanus shots are up to date.”

  “Keep looking around. See if you find anything that makes it look like someone’s been staying here.”

  Sweeping my eyes from side to side, I slowly advanced from the ladder to the window, deftly sidestepping the weak spot in the loft floor; the wood groaned pitifully anyway, and it was one of the few times I was particularly grateful for being small and skinny. Kaz was still talking, shouting out to announce every piece of long-forgotten debris he uncovered in the stables, when I reached the nest and sank dispiritedly into it.

  I looked out the window, staring at the spot where I’d last seen January, and let out a breath. It was clear that there was nothing to be found in the barn, and I suddenly felt overwhelmingly lost and defeated. Where else could I look? Who else could I talk to? I felt like I’d exhausted every lead I knew to check and had come up empty. Out loud, I mumbled, “Where are you, Jan?”

  Down below, Kaz was moving toward the ladder, calling out and asking what I’d found in the loft. As I turned my head to answer him, something caught my eye. I froze. The bleached light of the early afternoon, slanting sideways through the barn, picked out an irregular pattern that
seemed to be etched into the soft wooden boards of one wall. It was a strange assortment of grooves and bevels that emerged from the shadowy space behind a large crate. Scrambling to my feet, I pushed the obstacle aside and took a startled breath at my discovery.

  “Kaz!” I shouted. “Get up here!”

  Gouged into the soft wood, cut with a small knife or maybe even a house key, were a series of jagged hatch marks. I counted twenty-five of the spiky, uneven lines, which were organized in groups of five like someone keeping track of points in a poker game. I was staring at them, their furrows deep and emphatic, when Kaz scrambled up the ladder and popped into the loft.

  “What is it? What did you find?”

  “I’m not sure.” I touched the marks with my fingers, feeling the sharp indentations. They definitely weren’t old. “I think January carved something here.”

  “What’s it say?”

  Before I could answer, he was starting across the loft, feet banging down hard as he headed eagerly for my side. Instant alarm sent adrenaline streaking through my limbs, and I thrust my hands out in a futile attempt to stop him, words of warning on my lips at the same moment that I realized I was already too late. “WAIT, DON’T!”

  Confused, he faltered, and one foot came down on the decayed floorboards. The wood wheezed and splintered, dropping sharply under his weight, and time seemed to slow as the horror of realization appeared in Kaz’s eyes. The planks were buckling and giving way, breaking apart like dry twigs, and I launched myself at him with my arms outstretched. At the same moment, he pitched forward, hands grappling with the air as he fell, and we met somewhere in the middle.