by Cole, Kayley
"Yes." I slightly turn toward her, catching a glimpse of her face, which looks incredibly lost. I open the door, stepping out into the hallway. I try to shake the sight of her face from my mind. I take the elevator down to the first floor. As I walk through the lobby, my mind barely notes the agitated quiet, but as I step outside, I realize why so many celebrities would be anxious and, for once in their lives, shut the fuck up.
There's an explosion of noise as I step out and flashing lights, making me think of IEDs or emergency situations, but then the words stop crashing together and I can understand some of the shouting.
"Jake Amberden! Jake! Look over here! How's the wedding planning going?"
"Why are you at Twin Ruby Royalty, Jake? Is Ellie in there? Or is there someone else?"
"Jake, is it true that you're going to spend over twenty million dollars on this small wedding?"
Through the camera flashes, I see a Chicago Cubs ball cap in my periphery. Resentment can switch to acceptance when you're surrounded by cannibalistic paparazzi, who would gladly devour and destroy other humans just to sustain their shitty lifestyle. There's a cigarette in between two of his fingers. Robin indicates toward a black car that's parked tight against the sidewalk. My Escalade is in the parking lot around the corner, and there's very little chance I'll get there without getting into a fight with one of the paparazzi members. Unfortunately, from one or six previous incidents, the paparazzi know exactly how to provoke me.
I nod once at Robin. He crushes his cigarette under his shoe and dashes over to the driver's side. I move through the sea of paparazzi, toward the passenger’s door. I force myself to smile for one shot as I open the door, then quickly get in the car. I slam the door shut as Robin revs the engine, then pulls forward. The paparazzi scatter like a frat party when the police arrive.
Robin is impressive behind the wheel, taking all the right turns to avoid getting stuck in traffic. I keep a tight hold of the physician's bag and he doesn't ask about it. It would make sense if he was used to not asking questions— it must make him a better wedding planner. I should make small talk or at least thank him from saving me from the paparazzi, but my mind is too tired and my eyes are trying to adjust after all of those flashing lights.
I cling to the idea that I told Ellie I'd come back. At the very least, I should be able to keep that vow, but I'm not sure if I can.
* * *
The drive is silent until we're far enough away from Denver that I'm certain no cars are following us.
"So, why did you decide to become a wedding planner?" I ask, the strain to be polite reminding me that I'm just as much of an asshole as my father. I just learned how to hide it better.
Robin laughs. When I look over at him, I see the welt along the left side of his jaw. I'm exactly like my father. "Yeah, I know it's unusual, but I had been working as an assistant for years, which included a lot of event planning. A friend suggested that celebrity wedding planning was where all the money was, so I slowly switched over to wedding planning. I still do event planning though, so if you ever want the best Super Bowl party on earth… I'm your man."
"Well, you know how to drive a getaway car, so I'd be more likely to get ahold of you after robbing a bank."
"That would get us enough money for a great party."
He's jiggling his left leg as he drives. He notices me looking. His leg stops moving.
"Sorry, I'm not nervous," he says. "It's just a bad habit."
"Oh, I wasn't thinking about that," I say. "I just do the same thing when I'm driving sometimes.”
He shrugs, his leg starting to jiggle again. "It's what my mother would do. I learned it from her."
I run my hand over the smooth leather of the physician’s bag. My mother would jiggle her leg while driving too. It seems weird to think I might never see her do that again. How long had it been since I'd been in a car with her? A decade, at least.
I pull out my phone. There are a couple of messages, but none are from my mother and nothing from the police.
"Hmmm," he says, flipping on his turning signal. "Maybe it's a bad time to bring this up since you're not trying to assault me, but I feel the need to bring it up— I am absolutely not trying to steal Ellie from you or disrespect you in any way. I wouldn't do that. I actually wanted this job because of you. I love your films. I love your music videos. I knew I likely wouldn't see you a lot because I always work with the bride-to-be, but it was cool to get to know you through Ellie. I understand why you decided to marry her because she's great and she's one-of-a-kind, but I wouldn't… I don't even have the balls to try to take her from you. I'm just a wedding planner. You're Jake Amberden."
I don't say anything. He's skating on the thin line between genuine praise and flattery. The first one would earn my gratitude. The second one would earn my scorn.
I check my phone again. Nothing. My mother wasn't a flawless woman, but I'm so far from flawless that the world has embraced me as their messianic devil.
Robin parks his car in front of my house. The stone wall seems more ominous when it's dark. I don't see any paparazzi here, so someone must have tipped them off that we'd be at the hotel.
I turn to Robin. "I owe you a beer."
"Oh, no, what I did… it wasn't a big deal. Ellie has mentioned how much the paparazzi has been a hassle for you guys and I'm happy to help out. I can't imagine living like that where you're under a microscope and everyone is hoping you mess up. I know I've messed up so much that they'd have a field day if I ever became famous. I mean, I won't except for this wedding, but…”
"Robin. Shut up. Come in and get a beer before the paparazzi get here."
He shuts off the car. As I get out, the wind whips around me. It's gotten colder since this afternoon. It's also still Thanksgiving. I'll have to return to Ellie soon. My tantrum seems foolish now— there's no way she was involved in leaving that physician’s bag behind. She didn't even know it existed, and she's been the one pressuring me to look into my mother's disappearance. She's my conscience, demanding my attention, and I've just hated her for it because her bright light has always just shown how ugly I can truly be.
I lead Robin to the house. I unlock the door and reset the security alarm.
"We can't stay long," I tell him. "I have to get back to Ellie. I just needed some time to figure some things out."
"Does it involve that old bag?" Robin asks. I nod, setting it down on the kitchen island. He follows me, a dutiful dog.
"Yeah." I take out my phone. "I should call her. Do you have any expertise on how to beg for forgiveness for being a complete and utter asshole?"
"It depends on what you're apologizing about," he says. "Sex, drugs, or rock n' roll?"
"In most of my relationships, one of those would be the problem," I say. "But this is a lot more personal. It's… well, you know we haven't been able to locate my mother. It involves that, and I may have accused Ellie of being involved with my mother disappearing."
"Why would Ellie be involved?"
"She wouldn't. I just temporarily lost my mind," I say. My fingers linger over her number on my phone's screen, but I don't press it. I never apologize. It's just another thing I have in common with my father.
"Well, you’re rich. You could just buy her… another house? A farm full of horses? The state of Rhode Island?"
I smirk, setting my phone down and opening up the fridge. I grab two beers. "I'm not quite rich enough for Rhode Island, but maybe I could convince a senator or something to throw a parade in her honor."
I hand him a beer. He takes it, his hand nearly missing the bottle because his eyes are focused on me. Apparently, he was telling the truth when he said he was a fan. I open my beer and take a sip from it.
"You know she loves you. A lot."
"Yeah, honestly, it's the most foolish thing Ellie has ever done."
"No, not Ellie. Karen Amberden."
"My mother?" I shrug. "Sure. I took up residence in her womb for nine months. I'd hope she felt a
little something for me."
"It must be nice," he muses. I take another sip from my beer. That thing that's been at the edge of my brain is burrowing in. Ellie isn't the only one that knew about that hotel reservation.
"Why were you at the hotel?" I ask.
"I made the reservation," he says. He hasn't taken a sip of his beer.
"I know, but that was nearly a day ago that you made the reservation. You didn't need to be there."
"Oh, I know, but I was checking to make sure everything was okay," he says. "After your fight with Ellie, I needed to be sure the wedding was still going to happen. I didn't want to put in a day's work and find out that you weren't getting married."
"You'd get paid regardless. We wouldn't skimp out on paying you just because we had personal issues."
"I know," he says. "Still, I didn't want to make a dozen phone calls if I didn't need to."
I look at his ball cap. Chicago Cubs. Illinois. My mind skips back to the bedroom my mother was sleeping in— her graduation photo. The diploma from University of Illinois College of Medicine.
"You're from Chicago?" I ask. He nods. He raises the beer to his mouth, but then sets it back down on the kitchen island.
"Born and raised," he says.
"How did Ellie find you?" I ask. He shrugs.
"It's kind of a funny story," he says. "You know how I mentioned that a friend helped me get into the wedding planning business?"
"Yeah."
"Well, your wedding is actually the first one I’ve done.”
I set my beer down. "That didn't answer the question."
"Karen," he says. The name stabs into me. "Karen Amberden called your house to talk about wedding planning. Ellie picked up. She mentioned my name. I'm assuming Ellie wanted to make a good impression on her future mother-in-law, so she agreed to use me."
As I move toward him, he jumps backward, weirdly spry for a Chicago Cubs fan. It doesn't matter. I grab him by the front of his shirt and slam him into the wall. He winces.
"Where the fuck is my mother?" I demand. His face changes into a strange mixture of being dismayed and smug.
"Don't you mean our mother?"
* * *
Ellie
It's surreal to hear one of my own songs playing on the radio as I drive home, especially when the song isn't relevant to my life anymore. I tap my fingers against the steering wheel as the bass vibrates through the car.
Running like a bandit to find everything I stole
Is arsenic trioxide and fool's gold
But if I gotta be alone to avoid sacrificing my soul
Then catch me committing my crimes
Or I'll disappear into the numbing cold
I wrote Bandit before I reconnected with Jake. After being in a relationship for a few years, it's easy to forget how it used to be— how loneliness could be felt in the silence of a house or apartment and how the air literally felt colder all around me. I liked to imagine myself as someone who thrived on their independence, but I can still remember walking around, feeling like I was putting on an act for everyone around me and returning home to realize that putting on an act for other people was better than putting on an act for myself. After my father left my family and my mother had to work to support my brother and me, loneliness was inevitable, but it was like a disease that became worse with every year that passed by.
Then Jake came into my life, and he was the cure— the loneliness became a myth that I no longer believed in. But after seeing him hit Robin and seeing him at the hotel— angry and distrustful— I'm not confident that he was actually a cure. Maybe he was a bandage. Maybe he was a sedative, killing the pain with a cloaked violence.
I park in front of our house. Robin's car is here. I stare at it. Robin knew I'd be at the hotel tonight. Why would he be at my house?
I get out of my car and walk over to the driver's side of his car. I peek through the window. Nothing— even weirdly clean.
I stand up straight. It's dark, but the lights from the house— why are the exterior lights on?— are reflecting off a silver car across the road. It's not unusual to see a car around here— either fans, the paparazzi, or people who enjoy the view across from our house, where you can see the outline of mountains in the distance.
But it's late, and it feels like I just went past every paparazzi member that exists in all fifty states.
I walk over to the silver car. As I approach, I see her outline— the gray hair, the thin face, the big eyes. My future mother-in-law. At the very least, I know I wasn't crazy when I saw her before.
She lurches toward the keys; I pick up my pace. Her hand drops back toward her side as I knock on the window. She shakes her head, refusing to look at me. I jerk on the door handle, but the car is locked. I knock on the window louder, half-hoping the window will break so I can grab her and demand answers. Jake has taught me many things, and one of them is harsh courage.
She finally turns on the car and lowers the window. She doesn't look me in the eye, but stares down at my hands as they rest on the half-lowered window.
"What are you doing here?" I ask. "What the hell is going on?"
"It's a long story," she says.
"Mrs. Amberden, I write songs for a living. There's nothing I love more than a good, long story to derive inspiration from."
She glances up at me for a second before looking back down at my hands.
"I can't tell you," she mumbles. "It's… you and Jake are doing so well. It would be wrong of me to put all of my mess on your shoulders."
"Mrs. Amberden, Jake and I have been fighting over the last week over the fact that you disappeared. There's no answer you could give me that would make our relationship any messier."
She looks down at her own hands. They're small and frail. I'd imagine they're excellent at surgical procedures, especially for neurosurgery.
"When I was in college… I had begun dating Jake's father and… everything was wonderful. I was getting ready to graduate, I was in love, and all my professors seemed to think I was going to become someone amazing. Or, at least, an amazing surgeon." Her fingers slide along her jaw and she stares down at the center console, lost in thought. "But Jake's father and I— we got into a fight a few days before graduation. I went to a bar with some of my friends. None of my friends liked Richard, so they kept trying to get me to hook-up with these various guys at the bar. And I did. And I got pregnant. I was so ashamed. When the baby started showing, Richard and I had already begun fighting. I was hormonal. I… I don't know if I left because I actually wanted to leave Richard or if I just needed an excuse to be gone while it was clear I was pregnant. But when I was in Illinois staying with one of those friends from college, I ran into the father of my child. He decided he wanted to keep the baby. He seemed like a great guy and I'd have to leave a lot less of a paper trail, so I agreed."
I shake my head. "I don't understand."
But even as the words come out, I think about how Mrs. Amberden had dark hair and how similar it was to Jake's. I blink and recall Robin's dark hair and his eyes. I remember his Chicago Cubs cap— and how Mrs. Amberden went to college in Illinois. I remember how she called our house and instead of asking for Jake, she hinted to me that she'd found an amazing wedding planner named Robin Kerr.
She glances at me and must see the recognition in my face because she just nods. "He contacted me a month ago. At first, I ignored it. I had left him nearly three decades ago. My life wasn't as great as I thought it'd be, but my son…I mean, Jake's life… it was better than I could ever imagine. He was going to get married to you. People loved him and people loved you. The paparazzi was already going after you and the last thing you needed to give those vultures was something terrible from my past. And then I felt guilty for thinking of Robin as something terrible. So, I went to Illinois to see him. I didn't tell anyone, and I knew that Richard wouldn't care if I was gone."
She clasps her hands together and forces a smile as she looks up at me.
"It
's hard to describe seeing one of your sons for the first time in nearly thirty years. I could see a lot of Jake in him, but he was also entirely different. Jake never needed me. He had the same independence as his father. But Robin-- Robin needed me. He was… I guess, desperate to rebuild a bridge I had burned. If I wanted lemonade, he'd go out of his way to get me the best lemonade with the best glass and the best ice cubes. He was fascinated by every surgery story I ever told him and about his famous half-brother. He was, in every way, the kind of son any mother would want."
"I'm noticing the use of the past tense in that sentence," I say. I glance at our house. It's quiet, but we're far enough away that nobody would be able to hear anything inside. I know Jake isn't around because his car is still in the hotel parking lot, but I can't be certain what Robin is doing in the house.
"He's not a bad kid," she says, her tongue nearly twisting around her own doubt. "But when I told him I had to get back to my life in Colorado, he convinced me I owed him a couple more days. And he was right, so I did. He pointed out to me that if the truth about him comes out, it would only negatively impact my marriage, and Jake as well. I didn't care much about my marriage— I had already gotten the divorce papers— but he was right about Jake. And you. I knew, at the very least, I couldn't let the tabloids find out about Robin until after your wedding. I didn't want that shadow over a day that should be the happiest day in your life. I decided I wouldn't reappear until after your wedding. But then you called and Jake texted… I could see I was already casting a shadow. So, I visited Jake. I told him I was fine. But Robin was the one who had dropped me off, and he seemed really angry that I wanted to talk to Jake so badly. He thought I was too concerned about Jake. I wanted to make sure he didn't lash out at Jake, so I came here. Ellie, he's just suffering because I abandoned him. He's desperate for my approval."
"Mrs. Amberden, my father left my family when I was a child. I understand being desperate for a parent's approval, but this is insane. You let him insert himself into our lives and pretend to be someone he's not."