I sat, chuckling at how cute she looked when she was angry. “Why you mad, Mair?”
She ran into the house. I stared at the door, confused why she’d left me here. I was about to get up and follow her when she came back out. She pointed a key fob at Kip’s Bimmer. The trunk popped open.
“I’m not riding in the trunk,” I said.
She grabbed an old BMX that had been propped against the porch and rolled it to the car. I sat there laughing as she wrestled the bike into Kip’s trunk. It didn’t fit, but she shoved it in, anyway, leaving the trunk wide open. Then she opened the passenger’s door.
“Get in.”
At this point I was so curious where she was going to take me, I got up and complied. By the time I shut my door, Mary was in the driver’s seat, adjusting the controls so her feet could reach the petals. She started the car, put it in reverse, then rolled, jerkily, out into the street. Kip’s Bimmer was a stick, and she stalled twice before she managed to get it rolling forward. With a massive lurch, she finally shifted the car into second gear, going about twenty.
“You just stole a car,” I said, staring at her profile.
She was biting her bottom lip, eyebrows scrunched in concentration. “I’m borrowing it.”
“But why?”
She slowed at the stop sign at the end of the road, and the engine stalled. She growled and started the car again. At the next corner, she managed to keep the car going after the four-way stop. Just as she pulled out onto Glenoaks, two cop cars turned up Kip’s road, lights flashing.
That sobered me in a hurry. “You knew they were coming?”
She shot me what would henceforth be known as Mary’s death glare. “What do you think?”
That shut me up. I didn’t say another word all the way to my house. Well, that is, until the street before my house.
“Who lives here?” I asked.
“I’m not driving up your road,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to know I helped you.” She kicked me out and drove away, leaving me standing on the corner of Maple and Elm. I walked home but didn’t feel like going in. Not in my condition. So I got in my car, reclined the seat, and took a nap.
I woke to tapping on glass. Grandma was standing outside, her hot pink fingernails clicking over the windshield. Above her, the sky was blue.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked.
I yawned and did some quick thinking. “Thinking,” I said.
“Well, come inside. I’ll make you some breakfast.”
I wasn’t about to argue with that.
Thankfully, Prière wasn’t here at the moment. I wolfed down a stack of pancakes, and tried not to think about Grandma, staring at me.
She finally asked, “Want to talk about it?”
I didn’t, but I went ahead and told her about the call from Arizona.
“Oh, Spencer. I’m so sorry.”
“Me too,” I said. “Story of my life.”
“I love you, Spencer,” she said. “This is going to be okay. Do you believe that?”
Not a bit, but I said, “Sure, Grandma.” Because I knew it could have been worse.
Much worse.
● ● ●
As always was true with making bad choices, the next day was filled with regret. I sat in my room, playing video games. The mindless entertainment was usually a good way to escape my problems, but it wasn’t working today. Mary had saved my hide. A hide that hadn’t deserved saving. I’d been everything she’d accused me of. Drunk. Stupid. A selfish idiot.
And I’d kissed her.
What a tool move that had been.
I debated what I should do all the way through three levels of the Elderlands video game. I finally decided to call her—ask if I could stop by. While I really didn’t want to look her in the eyes, she deserved that much and more.
She didn’t answer.
So I sent a text.
I’m sorry.
Then I sent another.
I tried to call, but you must be busy.
Or she simply had no desire to talk to a stupid, selfish idiot.
If you have a minute, I’d like to stop by and apologize in person.
I didn’t want to be this guy. The guy who was always apologizing for being a jerk.
My phone rang. Mary!
I answered. “Hey.”
“I’m listening.”
Oh-kay. “I’m sorry, Mair. I shouldn’t have gone to Kip’s house. You were right, and I was so very wrong.”
“God closed a door with Arizona State, Spencer. He took away something you wanted. It happens. But you have to trust that he had good reason.”
That sparked a fire. “I don’t have to trust anyone.”
“I know it hurts,” she said, “but this is so much bigger than you. Life isn’t a video game. You can’t start over if you die. And you can’t win by working the levels hard enough. Sometimes you work hard, and you still lose.”
“I play basketball, Mair. I get the concept.”
“Well, you don’t live like you do.”
“This was more than wanting a summer job or applying for a scholarship. This was mine, and God took it away.”
“Maybe he did or maybe he just let it happen.”
“I don’t see much of a difference.”
“The point is, what you do in life, your choices, they matter—to more than just you.”
“I know, okay? I shouldn’t have gone to Kip’s house. I just wanted to be with people who wouldn’t tell me God had a plan. I’m tired of all God’s plans, okay? I’m tired of having to blindly trust him all the time. It’s too much pressure. I can’t prepare if I don’t know what I’m preparing for. All this time I thought I was getting ready to play college ball, but I guess not. I guess all that was a waste.”
“Did you have fun playing basketball, Spencer?”
I tried to guess where she was going but didn’t have a clue. “Yeah.”
“Then it wasn’t a waste. And you’re in great shape, so that’s another benefit. You don’t go through life only doing things because of what you can get out of them. You played basketball because you liked playing basketball.”
“It was my dream, Mair. It was all I ever wanted. I worked so hard for it. I came back from a torn ACL and that arrest . . . If I skip the Cambodia trip, I could probably play D-2 . . .”
“Are you going to skip Cambodia?” she asked.
I thought about it. Imagined letting Grace go there without me. “No,” I said. “I can’t do that. I mean, I could. But I won’t.”
“Which is why I love you, Spencer,” Mary said. “Just try to start thinking before you act, okay? Reacting to every emotion might have your best interests at heart, but not God’s.”
“Yeah,” I said, a little weirded out that she’d said she loved me.
“And I’m not counting that as our first kiss,” she said.
Gah! “Mary, don’t be weird.”
“I’m a forgiving person, Spencer. That’s just one of the many reasons why you’ll ask me to marry you.”
“Will you stop that?” I said.
“You just get impulsive when you’re hurt or angry . . . Remember that ten years from now when I decide to go back to work and you don’t—”
“Mary!”
“Okay, fine. But just one more thing. It’s okay to love us both. I give you permission, okay? Grace needs you too.”
Just when I thought she could in no way shock or confuse me more than she already had. I didn’t know what to say, so I went with, “Goodbye, Mary.”
“Goodbye.” I could hear the smile in her voice. But she hung up, so I guess that was that.
I threw my phone on my bed and slouched down in my desk chair. Time to pull myself back together. My dreams might be shattered, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t do some good in the world. Like Mary said, this was bigger than me. I had to make sure Grace survived her trip to Cambodia.
I wondered if she was still speaking to me.
REPORT NUMBER: 28
REPORT TITLE: I Take a Trip to Cambodia and Shock the Rock
SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Spencer Garmond
LOCATION: Los Angeles Field Office, Federal Building, 11000 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1500, Los Angeles, CA USA
DATE AND TIME: Wednesday, May 1, 9:12 a.m.
Grace was not speaking to me.
And I was okay with that. I didn’t have to talk to her to keep her alive. I knew Moreland and Isaac had said that wasn’t my job, but that didn’t matter. I was going to do what I had to do to bring Grace safely back to Los Angeles next Sunday.
We met at the airport. As per Isaac’s instructions, I wore my “Hollywood, California, FLY” T-shirt. Grace was wearing one too.
It was a long, drawn out process, getting to LAX and checking in and going through customs and getting on the plane. Grace said two words to me—”yes” and “no”—in the airport. She didn’t speak to me again until we were sitting side-by-side on a United Airlines flight to Tokyo, and then it wasn’t a good start.
“You kissed Mary?”
My face went slack. How could she even know that? And here I’d spent the whole day thinking Grace was still ticked because I didn’t want her coming to Cambodia.
“Don’t try and deny it,” she said. “Everyone saw you.”
I wondered briefly who “everyone” was, then realized she was talking about the people at Kip’s party. “I was drunk,” I said. “It was very wrong.”
“I should hope so, Spencer. She’s a child. And you’re a grown man now. People go to jail for that kind of thing.”
Now that was just insulting. “Mary is fifteen, I said. And I’ve been eighteen for a month. Give me a break. It was a mistake, and I apologized.”
“You disgust me,” she said.
I gritted my teeth but told myself, no, no. I wasn’t going to let her pull me into any more drama. I leaned back and closed my eyes.
“Does Mr. S know?”
I wanted to say, “Eyes are closed, girlie, which means I’m not listening.” I said nothing.
“Maybe someone should tell him,” she said.
I took a deep breath and prayed. “God, keep me calm. And help Grace too. She’s always so angry. If I can help, show me how. If not, help me shut up so I don’t make things worse.”
● ● ●
Eleven hours and twenty-five minutes later, we landed in Tokyo, Japan. I relished the chance to stretch my legs. I hated long international flights with a passion. And we still had to catch another plane—six hours to Phnom Penh. I somehow survived with the help of in-flight movies and the Beats headphones Kimbal had given me. I wondered if I’d see Kimbal in Cambodia—if that’s where the vision of him getting shot had taken place. Maybe instead it would be fulfilled this summer in Venezuela. Though the building I’d seen could have been in LA. It could have been anywhere.
The plane landed at 3:20 p.m. on Thursday. We’d lost a whole day of the Pacific. When we disembarked, the flight attendant gave us all visa forms. We walked down a really long jetway walled in by windows, then entered the terminal and took a narrow escalator down two flights. When we got off, we followed a white hallway until we passed under a sign that said in Khmi and English, “Visa on Arrival.”
There we filled out the forms at a standing desk. It was weird writing Jason Hines on my paperwork. I hadn’t done all that much undercover stuff with the Mission League, but putting my fake name and address on this form felt like breaking the law—which I suppose it was.
That was kind of a rush. Made me feel like a real spy.
We joined a line, where we eventually turned in our forms, our passports, and the extra passport pictures Isaac had given us. As a clerk reviewed my docs, I noticed an American girl at the station next to mine going back and forth with another clerk who wanted to charge her three dollars to scan the picture on her passport. Guess no one had given her extra pics.
Once I’d turned in all my stuff, I moved to the right and waited some more while they passed my documents to some customs agents. When they finally called “Jayso Highn,” which I guessed was me, I paid thirty-five bucks to get my visa. They returned my passport and told me I had to keep it with me while I was here.
I joined Grace in the immigration line behind a group of Americans here on a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) trip. Grace made small talk with a pretty girl named Emily who was from Oregon. I wasn’t listening.
“You play basketball?” Emily was looking at me.
“Not anymore,” I said, remembering Jason’s cover story. “You?”
“I used to,” she said. “My dad was my coach.”
“Jason told me on the plane that he used to be really good,” Grace said, smiling at me. “I bet he could have played college ball if he’d wanted to.”
“You’re tall enough,” Emily said. “You should have tried out.”
I shrugged, not wanting to talk about basketball. Arizona’s rejection still hurt. “It’s too much with all my college classes. You going to play in college?”
“No,” Emily said. “I’m doing YWAM now.”
“Cool,” I said as the line inched forward.
When my turn came, I’d learned everything there was to know about this girl named Emily Mosely from Eastern Oregon, including the name of her sister—Heather—and details about her parents, grandparents, cousins, and her golden retriever, Cassie.
When my turn came, the guy took my health form, stamped my passport, took my picture, and scanned my fingerprints. Great. Now if Spencer Garmond ever came to Cambodia, there might be trouble since Jason Hines had been here first.
After that we went for our luggage, then headed for the exit. Now that I was on this side of customs, the airport seemed actually pretty small. The whole customs thing had been less intense than any other country I’d been to—including the U.S. because coming back home was always especially stressful.
We exited the airport through a set of sliding doors which led to an outdoor covered area surrounded by shops. Humid, warm air clamped onto my skin, reminding me of Okinawa. A crowd had congregated outside, leaning on metal barriers, waiting for passengers. Many had signs.
A local guy with short white hair, who looked to be my grandma’s age, was wearing a lime green polo shirt and holding a sign that said: Jason Hines.
Hey, that was me!
I wanted to say something to Grace, but she was already approaching a Cambodian woman holding an “Grace Thomas” sign. So I beelined it toward Green Polo.
“I’m Jason,” I said.
“Ah, Jason Hines. Very welcome to Phnom Penh. I am Pok Yann. You hungry?” He motioned behind him to a Yoshinoya restaurant across from several SIM card machines. Isaac and the field office had already set up my phone, so I didn’t need one of those.
“Nah, I’m good,” I said.
“Okay, okay. You come this way. Your friend waiting in car.”
Must be Isaac. Pok took off, so I followed. I’d only packed one roller bag. The turtle suitcase had died after Japan, so I had a nice new one now with wheels that went every which way. I glanced at Grace. Saw her and her driver headed for the curb and a row of silver cars with a yellow stripe that said “TAXI” in English. I said a prayer that God would keep her safe.
In front of Grace’s taxi sat a boxy slate blue minivan with a bullet-shaped nose. The YWAM kids had surrounded it and were partly loaded, only it didn’t seem big enough for all eleven of them and their twenty-some bags, two guitars, a drum, and a couple boxes. Right now they had all five girls crammed into the back.
“They’re not all going to ride in there, are they?”
“Yeah, they fit them in, you know?” Pok said. “Is no laws here against many people one car.”
I bet the YWAMers were going to have a fun trip, but my long legs were thankful to be with Pok. He led me across the courtyard, past a weird mermaid/dragon lady fountain, and toward a corridor with a massive “Park Café” sign overhead. Khmi was a stra
nge language—like a curly Cyrillic. But to hear it spoken around me, it sounded short and squawky, like a bunch of birds having a conversation. We passed a Dairy Queen and a Burger King, which I found kind of sad. Did America have to insert their greasy food into every country on the planet?
Pok took me to the parking garage, where he approached a black Toyota Camry. Before I could get in, the front door opened, and Isaac got out. He was wearing a “Hollywood, California, FLY” T-shirt just like mine.
“Nice shirt,” I said, letting Pok take my bag and load it into the trunk.
“Good flight?” Isaac asked.
“Long,” I said. Especially when your seatmate wasn’t talking to you.
Isaac gave me the front, and I moved the seat as far back as possible before getting in. Pok started the car. The radio was on low, emitting the soft sound of some guy talking in Khmi.
“So where do we go from here?” I asked.
“To the conference hotel,” Isaac said. “You and I will register, then check in to our rooms. Then we see what’s on the schedule and go from there.”
“We’re sharing a room?”
“Yep,” Isaac said. “That way I can keep an eye on you in case you decide to take a midnight stroll on the roof.”
I grinned, remembering the building in Moscow that I’d nearly fallen from. “My rappelling days are over,” I said.
“Don’t know about that,” Isaac said. “I heard you did pretty well in Okinawa.”
“How’d you hear about Okinawa?” I asked.
“Had to read up on you when they partnered us,” Isaac said. “I think you handled yourself well in Japan.”
I pulled a face. “Except for the twin girls.”
Isaac chuckled. “Yeah, except for that.”
“What agents are with Grace?” I asked.
“I don’t think you know them,” Isaac said. “Agent Rachel Dominguez is in charge of this operation. Pok and I report to her. Josh McCarey is her partner. Michael Ricks is working surveillance with a local agent named Nita Noy. She knows a lot about this hotel, so that will be helpful. Nita is staying in the room with Grace and Dominguez. Ricks and McCarey’s room is right next door. She’s going to be fine.”
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