by Lisa Gillis
The possibility that J.J. was shacking up within walking distance had them both running for the house. The battery warning had flashed his phone during the conversation with James, and he needed to recharge it before they attempted to call the mystery girl’s number.
Chapter 8
Mississippi River Reflections
Welcome to Mississippi
Birthplace of America’s Music
Really? Birthplace of America’s music? Not Nashville or somewhere? I was born in Mississippi. Maybe that’s why music is my passion. Because as well as being born into a music dominated world, I was bred into it. A heritage thing as well as a genetic thing.
I’ve tried to convince my parents to let me hold off college for a year or two. Now with high school responsibilities over, I want to learn the studio and become more involved in my family’s label business.
In the past few years, I’ve tagged along with my dad, grandfather, and associates when they scout out and meet with new bands. I’ve brought music to their attention when I run across talent on the internet. And I’ve looked over their shoulders in the studio. It’s exhilarating to find a band in the midst of so many and watch when, with the guidance of a caring label, they grow from an audience of clubs to selling out stadiums and arenas.
I don’t use the word ‘caring’ lightly. Each musician in our family has been through a crappy label experience. They’ve learned what they don’t want to be to the bands they take on as well as what they do want to be. The studio my family owns and operates does it all—from scouting to recording, distribution, and managing. The client roster has grown over the years to rival larger, decades old labels. I want to be a big part of that.
They’re excited that I want to carry this legacy to the third generation.
The problem? I don’t want to divide my time between college obligations when they can teach me all I need to learn to have a career in the music industry.
Classes begin at Texas Tech where I’m enrolled in the fall, and I know my parents will think this is what I’m running from. And I am. But college is just a splinter in a tree full of bark.
As I explained in the email to them, I’m running from me.
I’m about to cross the Mississippi River. I can see the bridge ahead.
I bought an old-school atlas at a truck stop before leaving Florida. I also bought a prepaid cellular, but the paper maps keep me from wasting data the navigation app would use.
Easing up on the throttle, I check my rearview. Finding no traffic behind me, I slow even more while crossing this majestic body of water. Until now, I’d always viewed it as a brown snake from forty-thousand feet above. As many times as I’d crossed it, it had never been by land. Not that I could recall, anyway.
It’s possible I was driven across it when I was younger. I strain to remember the first few years of my life in Mississippi. Bits and pieces of that age are all I remember. Sometimes I think I’ve blocked the whole walking with crutches thing out of my brain.
The move to LA is clear in my memories.
My first plane trip.
The first time I saw the guitar pool. The first time I saw Rusty. The night I saw my new room.
Falling down the stairs. Skimboarding on the beach and meeting my relatives.
Sitting on my mom’s bed when she and my dad told me he was my dad.
All of these memories are compartmentalized during the time I was still walking with crutches from the medical condition I’d been born with. Yet, I can’t remember the crutches.
Strangers yelling for my attention and cameras in my face. I remember that. Weird women hanging all over my dad, I remember that.
I’m on the bridge now, and I glance away from the road for as long as I dare and then back again. The water is just as brown up close as it is from the sky, and this surprises me.
Shortly after leaving it behind, the landscape begins to look the same, and my eyes burn with fatigue. I’d checked into that motel last night, figuring I shouldn’t travel at night until I got used to the motorcycle—the old man had warned me against nocturnal animals, which are potentially deadly to riders. But I hadn’t slept at all. Panic at what I am doing, as well as plans, whirled in my head.
I’m still experiencing mild panic, but am tired enough that I’m numbing to everything.
One thing not numb is my guilt. I feel my mom’s anguish, and I want to reach out, reassure her. Having seen James in action, I know better though. If I’m not careful, he’ll figure out a way to find me, and my journey will be over before it’s begun.
I’m sorry, mom.
Chapter 9
Beach Breakfast
“Well?” Jules Loren dropped a toasted waffle onto each plate and reached for the syrup.
“Nothing.” Jack tipped the coffee pot to his mug.
“The Brittany girl hasn’t seen him since they left. She thought he left with the others.” Marissa dropped to a chair at the kitchen table.
“Mom…” June spoke in a conspiratorial almost whisper. “Zoë wants chocolate chip pancakes.”
Jules slid a waffle cut into bite sized pieces, drizzled with blueberry syrup in front of June and then Zoë, pretending not to hear.
Glancing at her mother-in-law, who looked as exhausted as she herself felt, Marissa forced thoughts of J.J. away for 10 seconds—long enough to gentle her tone, which she knew had been snippy with her two girls for almost a full day now.
But when she didn’t answer quick enough, possibly Jack thought she was declining to reply because that’s what she’d been doing when she wasn’t snipping, and his answer had them all gaping.
“June, give it a rest. No one needs that shit today.”
Jules’ eyes narrowed in disapproval, and she paused behind June’s chair to give the girl a squeeze. Surprisingly, June picked up her fork, unperturbed.
Jack’s guilt stricken gaze flew to his wife’s face, and Marissa held it, hoping to calm him. Almost never had a harsh word for the girls passed through his lips. J.J. occasionally. But never June and Zoë even at their brattiest. When June slipped into mini-con-artist-mode, he usually went along with the ruse long enough to work it out one way or another. When Zoë melted into a full-blown tantrum, she landed on his shoulder, wrapped in his arms.
Circling the table, he stooped, dropping a kiss on both girls’ bed-head before joining his father on the deck overlooking the ocean.
Marissa watched the two near-identical men through the glass as she spoke. “Dad’s really tired.”
“And worried about J.J.” June had been eating nonstop with her eyes on her plate, and she paused, perceptively meeting Marissa’s eyes.
“Where’s J.J.?” Zoë’s normally energetic expression was mournful. “I thought he was spending the nights here.”
Jules looked over the rim of her coffee mug in an obvious offer to jump in, and Marissa moved her chin in a slight nod.
When their grandmother sat down with the girls, Marissa stood and moved into the kitchen.
She was still elbow deep in sudsy water when Jules joined her at the sink. The girls had moved outside with Jack and Matt on the porch, and their oblivious, carefree laughter was muffled by the glass wall.
Jules loaded the last few dishes into the dishwasher. “What happens now?”
Drying her hands on a seashell-print hand-towel, Marissa slumped. “James is going to keep monitoring his phone. He’s also pulling Dusty and Todd’s call records, and he wants us to talk to them each separately. Even if they really don’t know anything, they might spill something that helps us.
“And Gabriella?”
“There’s no correspondence with her in months. Call or email. But James has somebody local who’s going to watch her for a few days in case he shows up there.”
Jules dropped a detergent brick into the dishwasher and then turned the machine on. “Meg ran away when she was fifteen. Hardest six days and seven hours of my life.” Turning, she seemed to deflate under the memory. You know, I
could stay here. Keep the girls. It might be like a vacation for them. And I’d be here just in case he shows back up.”
Until now, Marissa hadn’t even considered that their son might wait them out and return.
Chapter 10
Muddy Muddled Mind
SENDER: Tristan
SUBJECT Hi
Dear Mom and Dad, Just checking in to say all is good. Please hug June and Zoë for me. Love Tristan
All isn’t good. Not really. I’ve hit a snag.
Turns out it’s near impossible to get a motel room without a license and credit card. Apparently, last night I’d been lucky when after a brief hassle, the woman had succumbed to the Loren charm and accepted cash with no ID.
Tonight I’m not so lucky. This is my second attempt, and it’s embarrassing to be looked at as if I’m some idiot criminal on the run.
I pocket the visa debit card loaded with two hundred dollars that I’d bought at the store down the road.
I’m dead on my feet, but I pick up my guitar and step from the motel lobby into the night, heaving it over my shoulder as I straddle the bike. Easing into traffic, I head back the way I came.
The truck stop I’d passed a few minutes earlier looks like a mini city now when I’m coasting to a stop outside it. I’d gassed up earlier at a place down the road when buying the debit card, so I park directly in front.
The music sounding through the outside speakers muddies my tired mind. Literally. An ugly brownish film before I relax enough to will it away.
Sounds sometime bring on flashes and waves of color.
In my case, my synesthesia is audio induced. Chromesthesia. The colors strobing inside my skull are more vivid when the sound is combined with an intense emotion.
It’s a hereditary thing in my family. My grandfather has it and lived most of his life with it before it was a medically recognized state. It skipped my dad and landed on me. I’m the only one in my immediate family so lucky.
I speak both sarcastically and truthfully. While Dusty and the few I’ve ever told of the condition might think it’s cool to see colors when listening to songs, I’m not always in the mood, especially for shit -colored brown like tonight. When I’m tired, the extra stimulus is even more exhausting. But if I had to be born with something different, yeah, I’m pretty lucky.
A restaurant is off to the side, and the smell of bacon makes my stomach rumble. Like a pack mule with both the guitar and a backpack strapped to me, I wait in line for the cashier.
I pay for my coffee, orange juice, and jerky, and six dollars for the use of a shower. While waiting for my number to be called, I return to the register with a pair of flip-flops conveniently located just outside the shower room entry. After the clerk rings me up, I return to the area to sit down and wait at one of the tiny tables.
A trucker nods and takes a seat. Each area has an outlet, and he plugs a cell phone into his and drops it to the table. He’s soon in conversation with another trucker sitting nearby, and although they dip friendly nods my way, I remain quiet while tapping on my phone.
Chapter 11
Baby Fights
The term screeching like a banshee had never been real until the girls came along. Tristan Jack had never screamed as loud as either of the girls, even in one of his few temper tantrums.
Everyone on this stretch of the beach craned his or her necks to stare. Mortified and angry, Marissa leaped to her feet, barely feeling the heat of the sand as she sprinted to the surf where her darling daughters were pulling one another’s hair.
“Stop it! Stop it now!” Dragging the twosome apart, she held them in position, glaring into their tiny faces to assert parental authority. When they stilled and quieted, she relaxed her grip some, but cautiously maintained her hold. “Now WHAT is going on?”
“She threw my shell!” June’s eyes darted to the surf rolling in and retreating. “The pretty one. The one…” Her eyes filled with fresh tears as she let the sentence trail. “I HATE her!”
“No you don’t! And I don’t want to hear you use that word about a person ever again!” Kneeling, Marissa brought herself face to face with her girls. “June, she’s a baby. You can’t fight with her like this!”
Although… the red whelp on June’s cheek didn’t look like a baby had smacked her.
“Hear what Mom said? You’re a baby!”
“I’m not a baby! You’re a brat!”
“Stop! Now!” Realizing her mistake in providing fresh fuel to the fire, Marissa sent a fresh glare to June. Worrying over June’s face and hearing her youngest daughter’s words echo in her ears brought her to a new realization. Zoë was growing up enough to retaliate with words and a very strong fist—enough to become the brat she was now accusing her older sister of being.
She and Jack had played the baby card in Zoë’s defense way longer than they should have. Biting the inside of her lip, she paused, in no mood for the major change it was time for.
“Mom?” June all but whispered her dejection. “It was the shell J.J. found for me. The starfish one.”
Of course it was. Because this scene wasn’t already dramatic enough.
She wanted to ask why in the world the coveted treasure had been brought from the house onto the beach. But she understood after she thought about it for a moment. Just a few minutes ago, she herself had been reading old texts from J.J. on her phone.
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry…” Turning her attention to the smaller girl, she felt a scowl scrunch her face. “Zoë, you knew better. You need to apologize, right now.”
“Hey, you two!” Jack’s sandaled feet appeared. “WHAT is going on that I could hear you all the way at the house?”
June remained silent while Zoë promptly answered, “June’s being a brat!”
“No.” Marissa eyed the discoloration on June’s face and forced the word out that was about to turn Zoë’s little world upside down. “YOU’RE being a brat.”
“Why don’t I take them inside for some lunch? We can fix ‘Mom’ some lunch too. C’mon, Mariss. Put your feet up; get something cold to drink while we fix lunch.”
“We’re not moving until Zoë tells June she’s sorry.”
“I’m sorry, June.” All traces of defiance gone, the toddler’s lip even quivered in remorse as she delivered the apology. “I wish I could get it back.”
Straightening to her feet, Marissa met Jack’s eyes as she released her daughters so they could grab his hands. “Lunch sounds good. And afterward, Zoë is going to stay in her room for a bit, maybe take a nap, while June and I look for more shells.”
His dark brows went up, but saying nothing, he tugged the girls along with him and into the shower spray at the bottom of the stairs while she cleaned up the beach.
It was much later in the afternoon, after June’s cheek had been iced, after the shell expedition that she, Jack, and June went on while Zoë stayed behind for a nap that he addressed the calamity.
June and Zoë were at the kitchen table with a box of crayons and a stack of colored paper. Their giggles rang out occasionally, and finally, Zoë held up her paper.
“Look! I made my name!”
“I taught her,” June added.
Getting to his feet from the couch where they had both been tending to the most pressing work projects that couldn’t be ignored, Jack sauntered over and plucked the art playfully from Zoë’s hand. Studying it thoroughly, he smiled and praised her and then handed it off to Marissa.
“You’re right,” he said quietly enough so only she could hear. And his tired, stressed eyes glimmered with parental pride. “She’s no baby anymore.”
Chapter 12
First Impressions
SENDER: Tristan
SUBJECT Hi
Dear Mom and Dad, Everything is still good. I love you. T
As bright as the sun is, the heat should be blistering. After all, it’s August! But the rays warm my skin in a pleasant way, not baking. It’s weird to think the distance of a few stat
es can have this climatic impact.
The parking area is crowded. The faint beat of music pulsates the air. Instead of moving in the direction of the sound, I shrug off my guitar and backpack, flexing my relieved shoulders. I tap out a text on my phone and wait. I’m not disappointed when the answering text buzzes my phone in less than a minute. After a sequence of texts passing back and forth, I scan the region.
Cars continue to arrive, and the occupants eventually wander away from the area, so it’s easy to spot a lone person heading toward the lot. My breath stops for a moment.
Her long dark hair gleams in the sun. Blue highlights, striped with purple, shimmer in the straight ebony tresses.
A yellow tank top shows off inked half sleeves—yellow daisies or sunflowers and entangled green vines decorating both arms. Straight-leg jeans hug her slim, yet curvy hips. My eyes move up. She’s closer, and with every step more beautiful. She moves with an easy grace flowing through a body that Skype never did justice to.
Forcing my eyes to her face, I curve a grin. She’s almost upon me now, and she squeals in excitement. “You made it!”
“Yeah.”
She laughs in pure enjoyment of the moment and dances from one foot to the other. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
A golden glow brightens my tired senses every time she speaks. I’ve seen yellow before plenty of times, but this is different. It’s like a glow in the midst of the hottest flame. I feel the color’s vibrations with an intensity I never have.
Her eyes glide beyond me. “That yours?” When I nod, she asks, “You ride that all the way?”
I nod again. Why can’t I speak? I Skyped this girl for months. Exchanged thousands of Facebook message texts from my fake account.
“Trey, I’m so glad you made it. You just don’t know. I’m so freaking nervous.”